No Place Like Home
by Weimlady
Summary: The Doctor brings his new companion, Donna Noble, to meet Sarah Jane. The Doctor and Donna are right after Unicorn & the Wasp. Sarah Jane is still pre-SJA. Sequel to my Galindor & Rohstan Do London, posted here as well.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes and Introduction:**

Welcome to my Whoniverse! It all started with _Silver & Gold_, which was written to correct the egregious error of the writer of _School Reunion_, who mistakenly had Sarah Jane Smith turn down an offer to travel with the Doctor again. NO WAY! I said it as I watched the show, and I still say it!

In _Silver & Gold_, the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan all get reacquainted. In the next story, _Saving Horse Feathers_, the Doctor takes them on a trip to 1913 to help correct a time slip. He comes back to introduce them to his new companion, Martha Jones, in _The Regeneration Experiment_ and _Galindor & Rohstan Do London._

Also in _Galindor & Rohstan Do London_, the Doctor and Sarah Jane discover that they can bond. Sarah really shouldn't be able to do this Time Lord thing, but somehow she can. Personally, I think it's a combination of how much she loves the Doctor, how long she travelled in the TARDIS, and how often she was possessed by aliens, but that's just my guess. She bonds like a human, though--doesn't have all the instincts for it that she would have if she were a Time Lady. This caused a major problem the last time the Doctor left, because he immediately flew off into the events of_Human Nature/The Family of Blood._ The essence of Sarah got locked away in the fob watch with the Time-Lordliness of the Doctor, leaving her not much to get by on. Harry saw her through it, and, thinking the Doctor had died, proposed and Sarah accepted. Then the fob watch opened....

Sarah didn't renege on her acceptance of Harry's proposal. She loves him. She loves the Doctor, too. She doesn't see a problem with that, since she loves them in different ways. Harry's reserving judgement, but he's willing to go along with it for now and see how it works out.

This story is, at least in part, about how it works out. Or doesn't. Hope you like it.

**Chapter 1**

A whoosh. A groan. A gust of wind that set papers flying about the room. A flashing light. A blue police box that was there...wasn't there...was there...wasn't there...then was there.

The TARDIS materialized in its favorite spot in the corner of Sarah Jane Smith's living room.

Before the last of the papers had settled to the floor, a cacophony of barking erupted. A black Labrador Retriever skidded into the room at full pelt and flung himself on the blue box, while a smaller, silvery robot with dog-like ears and tail wheeled in hot on his heels. The lab bounced off the TARDIS, spun, and launched himself at its doors again, while the robotic dog, not built for leaping, zoomed around in figure eights, barking frenetically in a voice startlingly like his organic companion.

The TARDIS doors opened an inch, then slammed shut.

"Doctor. You've landed us in someone's living room."

"Told you. Wanted you to meet a friend of mine." The Doctor didn't look up from the console as he answered, making some last minute adjustments--setting the parking brake, as it were.

"Is your friend large, loud, black and furry? With very big teeth?"

He looked up at that and frowned. "Donna, what are you on about?"

His companion didn't answer, just gave a sharp nod towards the door. He strode down the ramp and boldly threw open both doors as she stood off to the side.

"Thor!" the Doctor cried joyously. The big dog went into new raptures and threw himself, tongue-first, at the Doctor's face. Unfortunately, the Doctor was just a few inches too tall for him. Instead of hooking his paws over the Time Lord's shoulders and washing his face, his paws beat a tattoo on the Doctor's chest as he bounced up and down excitedly on his hind legs.

"Ooooh, alright, big fella," the Doctor cooed, bending over so Thor could enthusiastically scrub his face with his tongue.

"Oh, that is disgusting," Donna said, edging out of the TARDIS and wrinkling up her face.

"Why? It's how his species shows affection," the Doctor said. Then he made a spitting noise. "Not in the mouth, Thor," he said to the dog.

Thor dropped to all fours, tongue lolling halfway to the ground, tail thrashing madly.

"And K-9!" the Doctor crowed happily at the robot as he pulled a large white handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face. "How are you, K-9?"

K-9 barked in Thor's voice.

"Are you talking to the hoover?" Donna asked, incredulously.

"That's not a hoover, it's Sarah's dog." His eyes brightened and he grinned. "Although that's a brilliant idea for an upgrade. Next time I get a chance to work on him."

"What in the name of sense are you dogs..." Harry Sullivan strode into the living room, a towel wrapped around his hips, another in his hand rubbing his damp curls. He stopped in mid-stride and mid-sentence, staring in astonishment at his unexpected guests. He quickly moved the second towel in front of his bare chest, but not before Donna had given him a very appreciative once-over. "Ah. Doctor," Harry said.

"Harry!" the Doctor said. He took in Harry's state of undress for a second. "Your flat being painted or something?"

"Ah. No." Harry glanced at the strange redhead who was giving him the eye, then back at the Doctor. "I live here now."

"I'm Donna Noble," that lady said, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. "Forgive him. He's a spaceman and doesn't understand the niceties of introducing people."

"Oh, sorry," the Doctor said quickly. "Donna Noble, Harry Sullivan. Harry, Donna."

"Erm," Harry said, looking at her hand and starting to reach out with the hand that still held the damp towel. He quickly realized his mistake, shifted the towel to his other hand, and shook Donna's hand. "I should get dressed. Make yourselves at home. The Doctor knows where everything is." He started to turn and leave the room, but then turned back, a serious look on his face, a muscle tightening in his jaw. "Martha?" he said hesitantly to the Doctor.

"What about her?" Donna asked before the Doctor could reply.

"Is she..." Harry couldn't finish the sentence, but the look on his face told them all they needed to know.

"She's fine," the Doctor said, a bit puzzled.

A huge relieved smile spread across Harry's face. "Thank God. We were so worried about her."

The Doctor's puzzled frown deepened, but Donna grinned. "She's more than fine," she said. "She's engaged."

Harry's smile grew even broader. "She is? How wonderful! So am I!"

"Oh," Donna said sourly, her face falling. "Figures."

"You are?" the Doctor asked Harry. "To whom?"

"Sarah Jane, of course," Harry answered. "Look, I have to get dressed. Be right back. Dogs, heel."

The dogs, living and mechanical, obediently fell in by his side and followed him out of the room.

The Doctor stood, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

"You okay?" Donna asked.

The Doctor's eyes snapped back to normal. "Ah. Yes. Fine. Just...well. Fine." He pooched out his lips. "Bit surprised. But fine. Come on. Let's put the kettle on."

Harry joined them in the kitchen before the kettle could whistle.

"Where is Sarah?" the Doctor asked as soon as he arrived.

"She had an appointment in the city," Harry said. "I dropped her off and told her I'd pick her up after, but she said she'd take the bus." He glanced up at the clock on the wall. "Should be here any time."

"Sarah's your fiancee?" Donna asked.

Harry nodded and smiled happily.

"And you two?" she asked, waving her finger at him and the Doctor. "How do you know each other?"

The Doctor and Harry looked at each other.

"I travelled with him. For awhile. A long time ago," Harry finally said.

"He and Sarah. We all travelled together. For awhile," the Doctor added. Then his eyes widened and went out of focus. Without a word, he jumped up and ran out of the kitchen.

"Now what?" Donna asked. Harry just threw up his hands and shrugged his shoulders.

"With him--could be anything. Come on!"

"You do know him," Donna said as she got up and ran after him to the front door.

The Doctor was standing six feet out from the door, eyes huge, arms out, his posture tense, looking for all the world like a bird dog scenting the wind. Then a huge, radiant smile burst onto his face, and he started running at full, long-legged pelt toward the road.

A small figure appeared in the road, running as fast as her much shorter legs would carry her toward the house. She glanced up, saw the Time Lord, and even at that distance, her smile beamed. She threw her handbag to the ground and put on a new burst of speed.

Sarah and the Doctor didn't slow down to avoid a collision. She just leaped into his arms, and he caught her and spun, dissipating their momentum in a dizzying whirl. Then he threw her up in the air, caught her by the waist as she came down, grinning up at her like a madman the whole time. She turned her face down to his and their lips met. He let her body slide down his to the point where their faces were on the same level, their lips never losing contact, their eyes closed.

"Erm," Donna said, watching from the doorway with Harry. "Is that your fiancee?"

"Mmm hmm," Harry assented, not looking at her.

"And...the two of them?" Donna asked, wiggling her finger at the Doctor and Sarah, still locked in a tight embrace.

Harry twisted his lips, started to say something, then blew out a puff of air instead. "Old friends," he finally answered.

* * *

As their lips touched, Sarah felt the bond between her and the Doctor explode into life, filling her heart and soul with his familiar, beloved presence. She closed her eyes and let go of all the good intentions she had had to hold back some of herself for herself, to not lose herself in him the way she had the last time they had been together, when they had first bonded. She was too open to him. She knew that. She had suffered through months of the consequences, had nearly died, would have died if not for Harry. But all caution, all rational thought fell away when she found herself held tightly in his arms again, his lips on hers, feeling his joy at rebonding with her singing through every atom of their shared being.

The timeless moment ended abruptly. The Doctor put her down and held her at arm's length, staring at her with wide, horrified eyes. "_Terza_," he breathed, searching her face desperately. She stared back at him, equally horrified, then screwed up her face and clenched her teeth with the effort of trying frantically to create a mental boundary around what he was seeing. "No, no, no," he said fiercely. "Don't you dare." His mind probed her memories relentlessly. "I need to see." His shoulders slumped and his lips twisted. "Besides, you're rubbish at blocking me."

She sighed, closed her eyes, bowed her head, and let him in. After a second, he dropped her arms and spun on his heels to face away from her.

"I didn't know. I didn't know." The misery in his voice was nothing compared to the wave of misery and guilt coming from him as he ran his long fingers through his hair distractedly. He spun back around to face her, deep brown eyes staring into her soul. "I didn't know. I swear."

"Of course you didn't. How could you?" she said softly, sending him a wave of love and forgiveness. "Please don't. It wasn't your fault." She threw everything she had into that forgiveness, but it still wasn't enough. It broke on the rock of his guilt like a wave breaking on a boulder. She half moaned, half laughed as she looked away from him. "I told Harry I'd strangle him if he breathed a word of what happened next time you came. And here I go and tell all within seconds of your being back."

"Harry," he said, and she felt his mind probing further into her memories of those horrible months when she was barely functional, when Harry's love and care were all that kept her going.

She nodded and let him see it all, waited for him when she felt his mind pull back, saw deep gratitude leaven the guilt in his eyes. "Yes," she said softly. "Harry. We...I...we owe him. Everything."

The Doctor stared at her for another second, then abruptly turned and strode rapidly toward the house, where Harry and Donna stood watching. Sarah ran back to retrieve her handbag, then followed him.

The Doctor stopped in front of his old companion and fixed him with an intense stare. "Harry," he said earnestly, his voice rough with emotion. Then he held out a hand toward him.

Harry raised his eyebrows slightly, glanced at Sarah as she walked up behind the Doctor, then reached out tentatively to take the Time Lord's offered hand. The Doctor started to shake his hand, then pulled him into a tight embrace instead. "Thank you," he said fervently. "Thank you."

Sarah tried to hide her grin at the sight of Harry's startled face over the Doctor's shoulder. "You told him," Harry said, his voice a bit strained as his rib cage was compressed by the force of the Time Lord's hug.

"I didn't mean to," she said. "I'm just rubbish at keeping things from him."

"She really is," the Doctor agreed as he released Harry and stepped back a pace.

"What in the world happened to you?" Harry asked.

"He was locked in a fob watch," Sarah answered for him.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and looked down at her. "That was quick."

She grinned. "Well, it was the first thing I wanted to know. Right after 'are you okay' and 'is Martha okay.'"

"A fob watch," Harry repeated flatly.

"Well," the Doctor said dismissively, tipping his head to the side. "Not really a fob watch. Part of the Chameleon Arch. But it looks like a fob watch."

Sarah frowned and stepped close to Harry, reaching up to run her hand over his tousled curls. "Harry. Your hair's wet." She looked at him. "And you're in your shirt sleeves. It's freezing out here. Do you want to catch your death?" She glanced over at Donna, who was standing, her arms folded across her chest, bemusedly watching the reunion. "And poor Donna's blue with cold." She gave Donna a bright smile, and reached out a hand toward her. "Hello, I'm Sarah Jane Smith."

Donna took her hand even more tentatively than Harry had taken the Doctor's. "How'd you know my name?"

"The Doctor told me." She grinned at the Time Lord, then turned back to Donna. "I'm so glad to meet you. Now let's get in the house before you two freeze."


	2. Chapter 2

"So, for those of us who don't have direct access to your brain," Harry said, once tea had been poured and biscuits had been served. "What's the story of this fob watch thingummy?" He looked at Donna. "Or am I the only one not in the know?"

Donna widened her eyes. "Don't look at me, sunshine. Didn't happen on my watch."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and looked at Sarah. She smiled and sipped her tea and after a second, the Doctor turned back to Harry. "I am so sorry, Harry," he said, his eyes sober. "I had no idea it would affect Sarah the way it did. You know I never would have done it if I'd even thought..." Harry nodded, and the Doctor continued. "These...creatures...were hunting me. Because I'm a Time Lord. So. I had to stop being one."

"You can do that?" Donna asked.

The Doctor nodded. "First time I ever tried it." His eyes darkened with remembered pain, and he looked at Sarah. She compressed her lips and nodded slightly. He glanced away, sighed, and looked back, taking her hand and squeezing it tenderly. "The Chameleon Arch--the machine that does it--takes my Time Lord self and stores it in a device that looks like a fob watch until I'm ready to change back. And since Sarah's self was all tangled up with mine..." He smiled at Sarah, let go of her hand and reached up to touch her cheek. "...she got locked up with me. A good bit of her, anyway."

"Excuse me, but...can I ask a personal question?" Donna looked at Sarah, who raised her eyebrows in assent. "Are you human?"

Sarah laughed softly. "A hundred percent. Yes."

"It never would have happened if she were a Time Lady," the Doctor said. "She'd have known how to protect herself."

"From...?" Donna's eyebrows drew together in confusion.

"From...losing herself."

"Which she did...how?"

"When I stopped being a Time Lord. Weren't you paying attention?"

Donna glared at him. "Yes, I was. That doesn't mean it makes sense."

"Donna," Sarah said. "The Doctor and I discovered, the last time he came for a visit, that we could...oh, you say it." She turned to the Doctor expectantly, and he smiled and made a sound like a complicated peal of wind chimes.

Donna stared at him. "That didn't help."

"Well, there's no proper word for it in English because humans don't do it," Sarah explained. "It's a sort of..." She sighed deeply. "Very hard to put into words. But a sort of psychic bonding between us. And...well, it may not have been the wisest thing we ever did, but as soon as we discovered we could do it, we did do it." She paused a moment, then smiled at the Doctor and squeezed his hand. "And no, I don't regret it," she answered his unspoken question. "It's just....there were a few unanticipated consequences."

"So. You're bonded with him," Donna said nodding toward the Doctor. "But...you're engaged to..." She cut her eyes toward Harry.

"That's one of the unanticipated consequences, actually," Sarah said, giving Harry a warm smile.

Donna blinked at her a few times. "Can we start over from the beginning?"

Harry glanced at the clock on the wall. "Maybe later. But right now..." He gave Sarah a pointed look. "We need to start getting ready."

Sarah gave him a pleading look. "But...we have guests."

"Sarah Jane. You promised."

She compressed her lips. "I know," she said ruefully. "But...well...could they come?"

Harry looked from the Doctor to Donna and then back at Sarah. "Bit late to get them on the list. Besides, they might not even want to come."

"Of course they do. Don't you?" She smiled brightly at the Doctor and Donna and nodded encouragement.

"Erm...come where?" Donna asked.

"New Year's Eve party."

Donna grinned. "Is it New Year's?"

Sarah nodded.

"Sarah. I'm not even sure I can get them in," Harry protested.

"Oh, come on. Special guests of the Commodore. Who'll turn them away?"

Donna's eyes widened and she stared at Harry. "You're a Commodore?" Harry nodded. Donna turned to the Doctor and gave him a punch on the upper arm.

"What was that for?" he asked, frowning and holding his arm. Sarah winced and rubbed her upper arm.

"Why didn't you tell me he was a Commodore?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," she answered emphatically. She turned back to Sarah. "Is it fancy dress?"

"No, formal," Sarah said, not sounding particularly happy about it. "Regimental balls always are."

"A regimental ball?" Donna sounded like a kid who'd just been offered a pony for Christmas. "Full of sailors? And on New Year's Eve?" She and Sarah both turned to look hopefully at the Doctor.

He sighed. "Nothing good ever comes of me putting on a dinner jacket," he said.

"Donna might not have anything to wear," Harry suggested.

"Harry," Sarah said. "You know the Doctor's wardrobe."

"Mmm," Harry said, defeated. "Well. Let me make a call."

"Come on, Donna. Let's find you something stunning to wear." Sarah and Donna hurried off to the TARDIS wardrobe. The Doctor drank the last of his tea, sighed, then got up and followed them.

* * *

"Zip me?" Sarah pulled her hair to the side to give Harry a clear shot at the zipper in the back of her gown.

He smiled as he obliged, then finished off by giving her a quick kiss on the back of her neck.

"Thanks."

"For the zip or the kiss?"

"Both," she said, turning to face him. She searched his face for a moment, then wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.

He closed his eyes and held her. "You okay?" he asked softly. "Him being back hasn't caused any...episodes?"

She pulled back far enough to look in his eyes. "No. Just...happiness." Her smile confirmed her words. "You? How are you feeling about him being here?"

"Well," he said, putting on a mock-stern look. "That hello kiss was a bit over the top."

"Mmm," Sarah agreed thoughtfully. "That _was _a mistake." Harry's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Well, that's how he knew everything that happened."

"From a kiss?"

She smiled. "It rebonded us. He saw everything." She sighed softly. "Not that I could have kept it from him. He would have known. Just...maybe not as fast. I could have broken it to him more gently."

"After everything he put you through. You're worried about breaking it to him gently?"

"He had to do it. They would have..." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to block the image. "...destroyed him. Used him..." She shuddered.

"Don't think about it," Harry said gently, rubbing her shoulders. "It didn't happen."

She nodded. "Right." She looked up at him with a determinedly bright smile. "Let's go welcome in the new year."

* * *

"Aren't you eating?" Donna asked Sarah Jane incredulously. "This food is fantastic."

"I'm having enough trouble breathing in this dress," Sarah said ruefully. "I might pop my zipper if I ate anything."

"You _have _gained some weight," the Doctor said, looking at her appraisingly.

Donna took aim and punched him solidly in the arm.

"What?" He scowled at her and rubbed his arm. Sarah winced and rubbed her arm surreptitiously.

"Oi! You don't say that to a woman, you big dumbo."

The Doctor looked across the table at Sarah, his eyebrows furrowed, then back at Donna. "Why not?"

"It's okay, Donna." Sarah laughed. "It's true. I have."

"Doesn't mean he needs to say it," Donna grumbled.

"And a good thing, too," Harry said, catching the exchange as he returned to the table with drinks for himself and Sarah. He set hers on the table in front of her, then slid into his seat and pushed a plate of nibbles in her direction. "Eat."

Sarah chuckled. "That doesn't work anymore.".

"Drat," Harry said, helping himself to the hors d'oeuvres.

"I...sort of lost my appetite a few months ago," Sarah said in answer to Donna's puzzled look. "Got a bit too thin."

"No such thing," Donna said emphatically, shaking her head.

"Yes there is," Harry contradicted her. He reached over and placed a hand on Sarah's back. "Not a bad idea to carry a few extra insurance pounds. Just in case you get sick or..." He raised his eyebrows at Sarah. "...lose your appetite."

"Now you sound like a doctor," Donna laughed.

"I _am _a doctor."

"_No_." Donna's jaw dropped and she stared at him in awed disbelief. "A Commodore _and _a doctor?"

"And he looks good in a uniform," Sarah said, grinning at Donna's obvious appreciation.

"And out of one," Donna muttered under her breath.

"Pardon?" Sarah wasn't sure she'd heard that last comment right.

"Erm...I was in the shower when they arrived," Harry explained. "Wasn't exactly...in uniform...when I went to see what the dogs were on about and found our visitors in the living room."

"Oh." It came out a bit squeaky, and Sarah cleared her throat to cover her surprise.

"Must have been nice, having a doctor for a fiance when you got sick," Donna said.

"Hmm?"

"When you lost your appetite. You must have been sick, right?"

Sarah thought back to those months. "Sort of." Her eyes went out of focus for a moment. "He wasn't my fiance then. But yes. It was nice having him around." She and Harry exchanged a look. "Anyway. Once I got my appetite back, food tasted so good and it was so much fun putting the weight back on that I got a bit carried away. Didn't stop when I should have." She gave Harry another look, this one more pointed. "Having him move in didn't help."

"I plied her with chocolates," Harry said with a grin.

"And regular meals. Living alone, you don't do regular meals. At least, I didn't."

"Yeah, everyone gains weight when they get married."

"Oh, thanks, Donna," Harry said dryly. "As if I weren't having enough trouble getting her to set a date already."

"You should travel with him for a bit," Donna said, nodding toward the Doctor. "Talk about a slimming plan. You do an amazing amount of running."

Sarah smiled at the Doctor. "You do, don't you."

"Oh, that's right. You did travel with him." Sarah nodded. "Did you ever meet the Ood?"

Sarah's eyebrows shot up, and she looked at the Doctor. With a small smile, he sent her a mental image of an Ood and a thumbnail sketch of their nature. "Erm. No. I never met anything quite that ood. Erm...odd."

The conversation turned to their various travels in time and space with the Doctor. Donna regaled them with stories of her recent adventures and Sarah and Harry reciprocated with tales of their run-ins with aliens, androids, robots and dinosaurs. The Doctor sat quietly, listening, occasionally adding a comment, his deep brown eyes sober, constantly studying Sarah Jane.

A fanfare from the band interrupted their conversation as it announced that the dance floor was open. Tables were pushed back and the music changed from a pleasant background to a lively foreground. Harry stood, gave Sarah a formal bow, and reached a hand out to her, his eyes twinkling. "Care to dance, ma'am?"

Sarah smiled, took his hand and stood. "Pardon us," she said to Donna and the Doctor, and they headed off to the dance floor.

Donna watched them go with a heavy, yearning sigh. "They make a perfect couple, don't you think?"

"Hmm," the Doctor murmured.

"Don't suppose they dance on Mars," she continued.

"Donna..."

"I know, I know, I know," she said, then sat in silence, elbows on the table, chin in her hands, foot tapping to the music.

Like the answer to a prayer--or just the obvious desire to be dancing, rather than sitting, that colored every line of Donna's being--an officer in full dress blues stepped up to the table.

"Ma'am?" he said questioningly. "Would you care to dance? That is, if your..." He looked at the Doctor. "...escort doesn't mind sharing you?"

"Oh, yes," Donna said, nearly leaping out of her chair and into his arms. "I'd love to dance." She hesitated long enough to turn and look at the Doctor. "You okay by yourself?"

He gave her a small, crooked smile. "Always. Go have fun."

"OK. See ya!" And she sailed off through the crowd to join the dancing couples.

* * *

"Where's Donna?" Sarah asked when she and Harry returned to the table some time later.

The Doctor indicated the dance floor with a lift of his chin. "Someone asked her to dance. And then someone else. And then someone else."

"Oh, good. I'm glad she's having a good time," Harry said.

"What about you?" Sarah asked the Doctor.

He raised his eyebrows and his lips twisted. "You have to ask?"

She nodded. "You're blocking me."

He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. "Sorry. I'm not really."

"Not like last time, no. Not a brick wall. More like...marshmallow."

He chuckled deep in his chest and shook his head. "I'm just trying to protect you. Trying to figure out how to make sure that what happened when I left last time never happens again."

"Amen to that," Harry said earnestly.

Sarah nodded thoughtfully. "I have to second that amen. I'd just as soon not go through that again."

The Doctor reached out and touched her hand, and she felt the marshmallow fluff dissipate as the bond between them came back into focus. She gently tested it, found his concern for her, his guilt--never far from the surface--over the unintended consequences of their bonding, his loneliness, the pain of holding back from sharing his consciousness with the one person in the universe who had become a part of him.

"I tried to come back sooner," he said softly. "But the TARDIS wouldn't let me. This is as close as I could come to the last time I was here. Now I understand why. The link between us....it was so strong. It would have been like crossing my own time line."

"But..you didn't come back right after you became a Time Lord again," Harry said. "At least--I assume that's when Sarah got her...her self back. That was months ago for us, obviously even more for you. You found Donna and took her on the grand tour of the universe--that didn't happen in two months."

The Doctor nodded. "I know. That's part of what I'm trying to work out. I think we must have been linked in real time as long as I was human. When that ended, our time lines were free to diverge again."

"You didn't feel anything...unusual...when you reintegrated your Time Lord self with the human you?" Sarah asked.

He looked at her earnestly from under lowered brows. "I had a craving for chocolate."

Sarah and Harry both laughed. "Well, we know where that came from," Harry said.

The Doctor's face relaxed into a smile. "I should have known then." He sobered again. "But I didn't. I felt the bond with you, but much weaker. That didn't surprise me--told you that would happen with time and distance. But you were still there. You never left me."

She sent her heart to him through the link formed by the touch of their hands. _Never will_, she thought.


	3. Chapter 3

"Well," the Doctor said, straightening his spine and lifting his chin. "Nothing I can do about it right now. And it _is _a party. Don't want to spoil that. But we have a date..." He glanced at Harry, then back at Sarah. "...an appointment when we get home. We need to spend some time working on this."

She felt his mood lighten as he shook off his melancholy thoughts and smiled, that dazzling smile of his that made everything in the universe seem right. She felt her own spirits lift as the soft, gauzy block between them melted away.

Just then, Donna reappeared, smiling and flushed, on the arm of yet another handsome naval officer. "Thanks for the dance, Gordo," she said. "Just give me a chance to put my feet up for a mo and then come get me!" He grinned, ducked his head at the Doctor and Sarah, and saluted Harry respectfully before heading off into the crowd.

"Having fun?" the Doctor asked mildly.

"Oh yes," Donna said. "Never thought I'd be invited to a do like this."

"But?" Sarah asked, her journalist's instincts hearing a very slight hesitation in Donna's response.

"Well. Can't complain about the scenery." The Doctor and Harry frowned in puzzlement at that statement, but Sarah grinned her understanding. "But. Well. It is all just a tiny bit...stuffy. Don't you think?"

Sarah smiled an apology at Harry before she answered. "Maybe a little bit."

"It _is _the military," he said. "And officers, to boot."

"Officers were all sailors once, weren't they?" Donna asked. "And sailors know how to party."

"Well..." Harry raised his eyebrows and started to reply, but the Doctor interrupted.

"Let's see what we can do about that," the Doctor said. He reached into his inside pocket.

"You're going to sonic the party to make it livelier?" Donna asked before he could pull his hand out from inside his jacket.

He froze for a second and stared at her. Then he pulled the psychic paper out of his pocket, got up and wove his way through the crowd to the band.

"Now what's he up to?" Harry asked with a worried frown.

The Doctor tapped the conductor on the shoulder. He turned to look at the Time Lord, startled by the interruption, but when the Doctor showed him the psychic paper, he cut the band off in mid-phrase with a tap of his baton on the music stand. Then he gave the Doctor his full attention as he received his instructions. The Doctor folded up the psychic paper, tucked it away inside his jacket, and raised his eyebrows questioningly at the director. He nodded, then turned to the musicians, said a few words, and raised his baton.

The Doctor looked back at their table. He caught Donna's eye and gave a sharp nod toward the dance floor.

"I think I've been summoned," Donna said with a grin. She got up and hurried off to meet the Doctor.

Sarah tuned in to her link with the Time Lord. _Please don't do anything to embarrass Harry_, she thought at him.

_Would I do that?_ came the reply on a wave of amusement. She laughed and shook her head.

The band struck up a new number--a livelier, faster, jazzier sound than what they'd been playing so far. The people who had been dancing and who had stopped when the music stopped now looked at each other questioningly. Donna pushed through them and arrived in front of the Doctor.

He bowed from the waist, all long, lean elegance in his tuxedo, and Donna grinned and gave him a small curtsy in return. Then the Doctor stepped up to her, put one arm around her waist and with the other took her hand and held it up in classic waltz pose.

That was the last sedate movement they made. With a full-on grin, the Doctor twirled her across the floor, spinning her out, then back, locking elbows with her and flipping her over his back in a flurry of sapphire skirts. The other dancers shuffled backwards, clearing an ever-larger area for the Time Lord and the temp from Chiswick to strut their stuff.

"Good job I saw _Grease _twenty-seven times!" Donna exulted with a grin as they spun together before the Doctor slid her between his legs, then pulled her back up and suspended her in mid-air above him for a moment.

"Good job they showed _Grease _on Mars," he countered, a twinkle in his eye.

The other dancers were now ringing the dance floor, clapping out time. Some of the couples glanced at each other, grinned, and started jitterbugging and swinging around the periphery of the floor. As the area filled again with jumping, spinning and twirling naval officers and their partners, the Doctor and Donna, both grinning like Cheshire cats, stopped dancing and looked around.

"Well. I think our work here is done," the Doctor said approvingly, brushing his hands together. He looked at Donna. "Bit less stuffy?"

She was huffing and puffing too much to answer straight off. "Too right," she finally gasped.

They wended their way back to the table where Donna collapsed into a chair, mopped her cheeks and forehead with a napkin and looked longingly at the empty glasses in front of her.

"Need a refill?" Harry asked, grinning at her breathlessness. She nodded gratefully, and he got up to fetch her a glass of lemonade.

The Doctor just stood, smiling at Sarah, not even breathing hard. Wordlessly, he held out a hand to her. Wordlessly, she took it, stood, and followed him to the dance floor.

He caught the conductor's eye and nodded, and the music changed again. Confused dancers stopped dancing, looked around, saw that the tall, lean gent who had shaken things up a few minutes before was back with a new partner, and cleared the floor for them.

He took her hands and they started to move together. Sarah closed her eyes and followed his lead, knowing, without knowing how, exactly what he was going to do, exactly what she needed to do. She could feel every beat of his hearts, every flex of his muscles as if they were her own and she knew he was equally in tune with her body. There was no chance for a misstep--they moved as one.

He led her through dances from Earth's history, ancient and modern--dances he had learned when he visited Nero's Rome, the Aztecs of Central America, and the court of Madame de Pompadour's France. Dances from World War II, from the Incan Empire of South America, from the Ming Dynasty, from the aboriginal peoples of Australia. And as he danced, his memories of each experience flashed through her mind in exquisite detail. She opened her eyes to look at him in wonder, and he smiled a pleased smile at her reaction.

With a dip and a swirl, he changed the dance again. Now he led her through movements he'd learned from alien cultures, dances meant to be done with more arms and legs than they boasted, not to mention the odd tentacle, wing or pseudopod. He adapted the steps for their humanoid physical structure on the fly, all the while sending her the stories behind the dances, images of how they were done on their worlds of origin, by the beings that created and performed them.

When the music stopped, she heard distant clapping, but she was too rivetted on the sight of pterodactyl-headed, leather-skinned, six-legged creatures dancing and leaping and flying around a bonfire for it to register at first. "_Terza_. Come back." She heard a soft voice calling and realized they had stopped moving. She gave herself a mental shake and suddenly found herself back in the middle of the dance floor, standing in front of him. Glancing around, she saw admiring, amazed looks from the assembled applauding crowd. Her cheeks grew warm as she smiled and nodded her acknowledgement, blinking in the light, trying to reorient herself.

The Doctor took her by the hand and led her back to the table as the band started up again and couples filled the dance floor. They passed Donna and Gordon on the way, Donna giving them a happy grin and a little wave as she went by.

Harry was standing at the table, watching them approach with a worried frown. "Are you okay?" he asked Sarah as soon as they came within earshot.

"I'm fine," she said.

"You don't look fine," he replied unhappily.

"Really?" She blinked at him. "How do I look?"

He tipped his head forward to look in her eyes. "Dazed and confused."

"Oh, well. I am a bit that," she admitted.

"But not...?"

She blinked at him again and worked hard at keeping her eyes in focus. "Oh. No. Not that. I'm fine."

He pulled out a chair for her and she sat gratefully and sipped her drink. The Doctor sat as well, and Harry gave him an unhappy look.

"Do you think that was wise?"

The Doctor widened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. "Wise? What...?"

"After all she's been through?"

"Harry, I'm fine. Please don't."

"Harry, we just danced," the Doctor said. "What's the problem?"

Harry stared at him. "I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

"Nothing. I'm fine," Sarah said, but the other two ignored her.

"Everything," Harry answered. The Doctor looked baffled. "About what happened. When you left."

The Doctor shook his head slightly. "I didn't take time to look at every last detail. When I saw what had happened I stopped. Didn't want to strengthen the bond any further and maybe make it worse. But I got the gist. Or at least I thought I did. Didn't I?" He looked at Sarah.

"You did. I'm fine. Harry, please..."

Harry looked at Sarah, his lips tight. She took his hand and squeezed it and did her best to look undazed and unconfused. After a second, he sighed and his features relaxed. "OK." He looked across the table at the Doctor. "Sorry. I'm a bit overly protective of her these days."

"I don't doubt it," the Doctor said under his breath. "But...what is this thing you think I know that I ought to know but apparently don't?"

Sarah threw Harry a sidelong glance and he shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. "It's nothing," she said. "Really. And it's getting better all the time."

The Doctor leaned forward and crooked a finger at Sarah in a "come here" gesture. She shook her head and held up a hand, palm out. "You don't need to do that. I'll just tell you." She gave a resigned sigh. "I..off and on...had some difficulty reintegrating myself. After you...we...got out of that fobwatch."

"Difficulty?" the Doctor asked.

She nodded. "I'd...sort of freeze up. Zone out. When something happened where the old me and the new me were in conflict."

The Doctor frowned, and she carried on. "But it's happening less and less. And for shorter periods of time. So I'm obviously adapting. Reintegrating. Right?" she finished brightly.

The Doctor searched her face intently in response, and she felt his mind gently scanning her. Then he nodded thoughtfully. "We'll work on it. When I get you back to the TARDIS."


	4. Chapter 4

"Sarah Jane Smith! Or is it Sarah Jane Sullivan yet?"

Sarah turned at the sound of the familiar voice, beamed a smile, stood and wrapped her arms around the speaker's neck. "Sir Alastair!" she said delightedly. "What are you doing here? This isn't even your branch of service!"

Brigadier General Sir Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart returned the hug and the smile. "My nephew went over to the dark side," he said, glancing at Harry with one eyebrow raised and a twinkle in his eye. "And he knows how much his Aunt Doris loves these dos. Always makes sure we get an invitation. But you didn't answer my question," he added sternly.

"Still Smith," she said. "Do you seriously think that would change without your getting an invitation?"

"Thought Sullivan might have had the sense to just sweep you off to an elopement," he answered.

Harry had pulled an empty chair from the neighboring table to theirs when he saw the Brigadier, and the older man sank gratefully into it as soon as Sarah took her seat. The Doctor sat quietly, a small smile playing across his lips, watching the Brigadier from the far side of the table.

"When did you learn to dance like that?" the Brigadier continued. "And who was that young chap you were dancing with?"

Sarah smiled and raised her eyebrows in the Doctor's direction. "He's not as young as you might think," she said.

The Brigadier turned to look across the table, noticing the Doctor for the first time and realizing he was part of Harry and Sarah's party.

"Hello, Alastair," the Doctor said softly with an affectionate smile.

The Brigadier frowned slightly at the familiarity and scrutinized the Doctor's face closely. "I'm sorry, young man, but..." He broke off, his mouth hanging open for a second before a low, disbelieving "noooo" came out.

A grin spread across the Doctor's face. "'Fraid so," he said.

The Brigadier turned to look at Harry and Sarah, who both smiled and nodded.

"Doctor?" It still came out as a disbelieving question more than a greeting.

The Doctor stood up and stretched a long arm across the table. "Good to see you again, Alastair," he said.

The Brigadier took the offfered hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Good God, man. We thought you were dead."

"I am sorry about that," the Doctor said with a quick, dark glance at Sarah Jane.

The Brigadier harrumphed out a short dismissive breath. "Sure it couldn't be helped. Probably some space monster or other after you."

The Doctor smiled crookedly and nodded. "Something like that." He pulled his chair around the table closer to the others and the four old friends were quickly deep in conversation, catching up, reminiscing, sharing tales of their adventures in the years since they'd fought aliens and saved the Earth together.

A fanfare from the band brought them back to the present. Harry looked at his watch. "Ah. The witching hour."

"Oh dear. Should be with Doris," the Brig said. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "Too late now."

Someone started a countdown. "Ten....nine....eight...." shouted the crowd, marking the last seconds of the old year. At the stroke of midnight, the band struck up Auld Lang Syne, balloons, streamers and confetti filled the air, and the room rocked with cheers.

Harry looked at Sarah with an expectant air and a twinkle in his eye. "So. Who are you going to kiss for good luck?"

Sarah looked around the trio of men--well, two men and an alien--and came to the only possible conclusion. "All of you." She leaned over to kiss Harry, then the other way to give the Brig a kiss, then met the Doctor's eyes.

"Might not be a good idea," he said, but his smile softened the words.

"Just a quick one. Earth tradition, you know." She half rose, leaned across the Brigadier, and gave the Doctor a light kiss.

As their lips touched, she felt herself sinking into his consciousness, felt the connection between their hearts and minds respond to the physical contact. She quickly pulled back. He gave her an "I warned you" look and a crooked smile.

The Brigadier hailed a waiter who was circulating through the tables, took four glasses of champagne off his tray and handed them around. "Happy New Year!" he said, lifting his glass. "To many more adventures with good friends." He gave Sarah a direct look. "And a wedding in the new year."

"That _will _be an adventure," Sarah said under her breath, but she raised her glass as well.

"Whoa, wait for us!" Donna and a young officer sailed out of the crowd, glasses in hand, and joined in the toast.

"Where's Gordon?" Sarah asked after they had all drunk to the new year.

"Oh, his date wanted him back. Midnight snog, you know." She grinned. "So I had to get mine in before. Was dancing with Tommy here at the stroke, so he's the one who got the midnight snog from me." She rolled her eyes thoughtfully. "And George and Peter and Robert and..." She turned to Tommy. "Who was the bloke with the blond curls?"

"Tim," he said.

"Right," Donna said. "Tim!" A server walked by and she deftly snared a fresh glass of champagne off his tray without his even noticing. "Had quite a little snogfest going there for a few minutes," she said with a grin, after downing half the glass of bubbly at a gulp. "Great party. Better than Agatha Christie's." She leaned forward. "No giant wasp," she said in a confiding tone.

Tommy laughed. "She says the most wonderfully bonkers things," he said, grinning at the others.

"Oh, Tommy, sorry, forgot t'introduce you," Donna said. "This is Harry." Donna dropped her voice and stage-whispered in his ear. "He's a Commodore."

"I see that," Tommy said with an amused smile. He saluted Harry. "Sir." Harry nodded and returned the salute.

"And this is Sarah Jane Smith. Harry's fiancee."

Tommy grinned hugely at Sarah Jane. "Oh, she needs no introduction. Very pleased to meet you, Miss Smith." Sarah smiled and nodded and Donna peered at her a bit blearily.

"Why doesn't she need an introduction?" Donna asked.

"She's famous," he answered softly, with an apologetic smile toward Sarah.

Donna's brows furrowed. "You are?" she asked Sarah.

Sarah laughed. "Used to be. A bit."

Donna's jaw slowly dropped and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "You're _that _Sarah Jane Smith! Oh. My. God. I thought you looked familiar." She turned to the Doctor. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She raised her hand to give him a punch in the arm, but he caught it before she could. "Don't, Donna," he said softly. "Just...don't."

She pulled back and frowned at him. "Why not?"

The Doctor gave Tommy a very uncomfortable glance before answering. "Because it hurts Sarah Jane."

"What?" Donna said, turning to face Sarah.

Sarah compressed her lips and met the Doctor's eyes. Then she nodded slightly at Donna.

"But..."

"We'll talk about it later," the Doctor said softly to Donna. "Just...enjoy the party."

She blinked at him a few times, then nodded.

"Yes, it is a wonderful party, isn't it?" Tommy said brightly. "We needed this after Christmas."

Donna turned to look at him. "Didn't you have a good Christmas?"

He laughed incredulously. "Did anyone in London?" Donna just stared at him blankly. "Big weird...thing...in the sky? Shooting lightning bolts?" Donna's eyebrows went up. "The Thames running dry?" he continued.

Donna turned to look at the Doctor, her eyes wide, her mouth open. The Time Lord rolled his eyes in response.

"Two years in a row," Harry commented, shaking his head. "Aliens attacking London at Christmas. I'll be surprised if anyone stays in the city for the holiday next year."

"Aliens, sir?" Tommy said with a skeptical laugh.

Harry gave him a direct look. "Well, what did you think it was, Captain? The Christmas star?"

"Well, n-no sir," Tommy said, stammering a bit at Harry's rebuke.

"We've been fighting off aliens for decades, son," the Brigadier chimed in. "Nothing new about it."

Tommy stared at the old soldier in stunned silence for a moment. Then he smiled. "Erm. You have, sir," he stated in that tone reserved by some for children, the elderly, and the mentally challenged.

Sarah bridled internally, but kept an impassive smile on her face. "Oh yes," she said. She glanced around the table. "We all have." Harry, the Doctor, the Brigadier and Donna nodded agreement as if she'd made the most obvious statement in the world

Tommy stared at her, and her eyes dared him to use that tone of voice again. He glanced around the table. "Yes. Erm." He stood. "Donna. It's been wonderful. But I think I'd better shove off now. Nice meeting you all."

With a quick salute, he disappeared into the crowd. The five alien fighters stared at each other across the table for a moment, then burst out laughing.


	5. Chapter 5

When they arrived back at Bannerman road in the wee frosty hours of the first morning of the new year, Donna flumped onto the sofa and kicked off her shoes with a moan of pleasure. Sarah sat on her desk chair and gingerly pulled her shoes off, set them on the floor side by side, then rubbed her feet with a matching moan. The Doctor headed straight for the TARDIS, loosening his tie as he went, while Harry disappeared down the hall.

Moments later, Thor bounded out of the hallway and joyfully greeted Sarah and Donna, tail thrashing.

"Thor!" Sarah protested, holding him at arm's length as he tried to climb in her lap. "I'm not dressed for you, mister."

"Thor, come on," Harry called as he strode to the door, K9 following at his heels. Thor, seeing where his master was headed, quickly abandoned the women and galloped for the front door.

"K9," Sarah called sternly as her robot dog tried to follow them. "You know you can't go outside."

"Maybe he has to go," Donna said. "You know. Leave a puddle of oil. Or drop a few ball bearings in the garden."

"All I need is for the neighbors to see him," Sarah said.

The little robot had stopped, turned around, and wheeled his way to Sarah Jane at her call. When he arrived in front of her, he tipped himself up on his backside, using his tail as a prop, so his front wheels dangled in the air. He emitted a plaintive whine well worthy of Lassie herself.

"Honestly," Sarah said, looking down at him and clicking her tongue. "What am I going to do with you?"

The Doctor, still wearing his tux but with the tie long gone and the top buttons of his dress shirt undone, leaned out of the TARDIS door. "Something wrong with K9?"

Sarah sighed. "I call him Pinocchio these days." The Doctor's eyebrows came together at that, and she laughed and went on. "Ever since Thor moved in, K9 tries to do everything he does. I think he's trying to become a real dog."

"What?" the Doctor asked, stepping out of the TARDIS and looking down at the little robot.

Sarah nodded. "He won't even talk to me anymore. Just barks."

"I didn't program him to do that," the Doctor said. He crouched down in front of K9. "K9," he said, addressing the robot directly.

K9 woofed and whimpered.

"K9, speak English."

K9's head and tail dropped and the light in his eyes dimmed. He whined. Not a mechanical whine, but a canine whine.

The Doctor's lips twisted and he pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his inner pocket. He reached over K9's lowered head to the control panel on his back, aimed the sonic at it, gave it a buzz and opened it. Shifting around to K9's side, he peered into the little robot's inner workings, delicately reaching in and making adjustments with his long, nimble fingers.

"K9," he said again.

"Y-y-y-ess, Doctor Master." The voice was rusty from disuse.

Donna sat up straight and stared at the little dog. "It talks," she said in astonishment.

"Of course he talks," the Doctor said. "He speaks 972 languages and 47 dialects."

"Including Dog?" she asked.

The Doctor threw her a look. "I think he taught himself that." He turned back to the robot. "K9, why won't you talk to Sarah Jane?"

K9 woofed.

"In English," the Doctor said sternly.

"Thor does not speak to humans," K9 said, his mechanical voice somehow managing to sound reluctant.

"That doesn't mean you don't," the Doctor said.

"Thor is a dog. I am a dog. I must do what dogs do."

The Doctor stared at him, then looked up at Sarah Jane. The bafflement in the Time Lord's brown eyes was too much for her. She burst out laughing, and after a second, so did he.

The sound of barking--loud, full of bravado but with an undertone of panic--erupted in the garden. "It's not as if he doesn't get ample opportunity to learn Dog," Sarah said with a touch of asperity.

"Doctor!" Harry's voice carried over the barking. "Doctor!" The urgency in his tone sobered both the Doctor and Sarah instantly. The Time Lord was on his feet and out the door while Sarah was quickly squeezing her complaining feet back into her shoes. She and Donna grabbed the wraps they had thrown down when they got home and followed the Doctor out into the garden.

The first thing Sarah noticed when she emerged into the freezing night was the glow--a shifting evanescence that cycled through various shades and hues of green and violet. The second thing she noticed was Harry, holding a struggling, lunging Thor firmly by the collar, standing back from the radiance. The third thing she noticed was the Doctor, standing and staring at the source of the glow, its eerie flickering light washing over him.

"You're beautiful," he breathed in an awed tone as Sarah stepped up by his side. She knew he wasn't talking to her or about her and she had to agree--the creature that stood in the center of the radiance was visually stunning.

"Sarah," Harry called. She turned to look over her shoulder at him, saw him beckon to her with his free hand, knew he wanted her safely away from this...this visitor in her garden. She shook her head, her eyes pleading for understanding, and turned back to the creature.

It stood calmly on four slim legs, each ending in a three-toed cloven hoof. Its eyes were luminous, liquid, hypnotic. Its back came to the height of the Doctor's waist, its head to the level of his shoulders. If Sarah had to compare it to something familiar and earthly, she would have called it a distant cousin of the antelope family, with a goat-like beard, the luxuriant mane of a Shetland pony and the ropey tail of a donkey thrown in for good measure. But its lime-green mossy fur was like nothing ever seen on an earth creature. And those eyes...

"We seek Sarah Jane Smith." The radiance brightened marginally as this thought echoed through her mind. Startled, she looked at the Doctor and Donna and knew, from the expressions on their faces, that they had heard it too. The creature's lips hadn't moved.

"I'm Sarah Jane Smith," Sarah said out loud, stepping forward. The Doctor reached out and grasped her by the arm, holding her back and giving her a worried frown. "Who are you?"

"We are the New. We seek your aid."

The thoughts that echoed through her mind were not really in words, so she wasn't tempted to ask, "The new what?" The meaning, mind to mind, was clear. They were something new in the universe.

"Why do you seek Sarah Jane? How can she help?" Sarah felt the Doctor's grip on her arm tighten as he spoke.

The creature bobbed its head twice, then went down on one front knee in front of Sarah Jane. "It is rumoured throughout the galaxies that she is a part of the last Time Lord." It bowed its head until its flat forehead nearly touched the ground. "That she is his heart."

Sarah and the Doctor exchanged glances. "Word travels fast," Sarah said softly.

He gave a short, worried laugh, then turned back to the creature. "I am the last Time Lord. Why do you not seek me?"

The alien jumped up, planting its four feet and turning its liquid eyes on the Doctor. "It is too difficult. We did not know how to find you."

"But you knew how to find me?" Sarah squeaked in surprise.

It turned to her and bobbed its head again. "Yes. You are a fixed point. The last Time Lord is not. He roams the universe with no pattern."

The Doctor pulled a "meh" face and tipped his head from side to side. "Well. I have my reasons for where and when I go. May not be obvious to an outsider..."

"Doctor," Donna hissed, tugging on his elbow and standing slightly behind him.

The Doctor turned to look at her and she gave a pointed nod toward the glowing green visitor. "Oh. Right. Well. You found me. Lucky you. Why do you need our help? And what kind of help do you need?"

"We are the New," the thought came again. "But the Others do not heed this. They treat us as if we were the Old. It is an abomination unto us. We cannot communicate with them. We cannot ask them to stop. To treat us as the New that we are. The New cannot survive being handled like the Old."

"So, you need a translator?" the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully."Yeah, I could help out with that. Pretty good with languages. TARDIS is too. Might not even need me. Could just park her..."

"You will assist?" The question echoed through their minds, coloured with hope and relief.

"That's what he said, sunshine," Donna answered, peering around the Doctor at the creature.

"Thank you!" And even as the concept of intense gratitude echoed through their minds, the radiance surrounding the creature blazed into incandescence.

"Sarah!" Harry cried, throwing his free arm up and turning his head aside to protect his eyes from the dazzling light. Thor whimpered and hid behind Harry's legs.

Despite his attempts to shield his eyes, the brilliance that flared in the garden momentarily blinded Harry. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a second, then opened them again.

The night was black. And Sarah, Donna, and the Doctor were gone.


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor moaned. His eyes flickered open, then quickly shut. After a moment, they opened again and he squinted up at the sky above him, deep lines forming at the corners of his eyes. A white sun with a pale lavender corona beamed down on him. He tried to sit up, but only managed to prop himself up on one elbow and roll to the side, his free hand clutching his head as he moaned again. He lay still, breathing deeply, then grimaced and pushed himself up off the ground and into a standing position.

He wavered a bit and reached out to steady himself on the vegetation that surrounded him. He stumbled forward a half-step as it collapsed, giving under his weight like the blade of grass it resembled, albeit a yellow six foot tall blade of grass with orange serrated edges.

He pressed his palm to his forehead for a moment, then looked up. "Sarah!" he called. "Donna!" He stood at attention, listening hard.

Nothing. No answering voices. Just a very soft sigh of air whispering over the tops of the grass blades and the barely perceptible chirping of some unknown denizen of this unknown place.

He spun around, calling his companions' names again. Still no response. He reached out with long arms to part the surrounding grass curtain, but saw nothing but more grass beyond. He repeated the action at several compass points with the same result--nothing but grass. He bounced on the balls of his feet, then leapt straight up as far as he could, which brought his eyes just above the top of the grass. He turned and repeated the leap, scanning the horizon in the opposite direction in the split-second he could see it above the grass. When he landed, he grimaced and stood, head hanging, for a long moment. Then he started walking in a tight but ever-expanding spiral, pushing the grass aside and peering at the ground as he went.

He found Donna by tripping over her. He managed to catch himself, hands on the ground, before falling full-length into the grass, then quickly knelt by her side. Her eyes were closed, the lids tinged with blue. He put his hands out, palms down, and hovered them an inch above her body, moving them over her from head to toe. When he was finished, he sighed, gave her insensate shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then stood again and tried to reorient himself to continue his previous spiralling walk.

It was no good. The grass had sprung up in the wake of his passing and there was no trace of where he had come from. He repeated his earlier actions, parting the grass and peering through it while standing at various points around Donna's unconscious body. Then, with a sigh, he started his spiralling walk again, this time using Donna as the focus of the spiral.

He found Sarah about six feet away, totally invisible in the tall grass until he was nearly on top of her. He knelt beside her and repeated the scanning routine he had performed on Donna. Then he slid one arm under her back and the other under her knees, and with a grunt and a grimace hoisted her off the ground. He headed back towards where he had left Donna, pushing his way backwards through the grass, holding Sarah tightly to him to protect her from the sharp edges of the giant grass blades.

He lay Sarah gently on the ground next to Donna, gave them both another quick palms-down scan, then stood and gazed sourly around at the grass that blocked his view. Once again, he set out on his spiralling walk, continuing past the point where he had found Sarah. His brow furrowed as he reached a spot at least ten feet further out, and he gave a worried look over his shoulder to where he had left his companions lying, unconscious and defenseless. With a sigh, he turned and pushed his way back through the grass to them.

He stood between them for a moment, staring at them with a worried frown, then sank down to sit cross-legged between them. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his head fall forward into his hands, long fingers lacing through even-more-disheveled-than-usual hair. After a moment, he reached out with one hand and rested it on Sarah's shoulder. He closed his eyes, and the lavender rays of the sun shone down on the three unmoving figures, a very small island in a very large sea of grass.

Sarah was the first to begin to recover. She moaned, slitted her eyes and started to sit up.

"Lie still," the Doctor said gently, his hand on her shoulder holding her down.

She didn't argue, just lay back and closed her eyes. After a moment, she opened them again, looked up at the sky, took in the surrounding grass, then focussed on the familiar features of the Time Lord. "Where are we?"

"No idea," he answered. "But it was one hell of a rough ride getting here."

"Harry?" Sarah sat up with a frown, despite the gentle pressure from his hand. She glanced over and saw Donna. "Is she okay?"

"As okay as you are," he answered.

"Harry?" she asked again, her heart in her throat.

His sorrowful eyes met hers directly, and he shook his head.

"Oh, God," Sarah said, the words catching in her throat.

"No. No no no," he quickly responded. "I just meant he doesn't seem to be here. I can't find him anyway." He gave her his most earnest look. "I did try."

Sarah looked around at the wall of grass that surrounded them. "But he could be out there. He was standing behind us."

The Doctor nodded. "I know. I think he was out of range of the teleport field. I don't think he's here."

She looked into his eyes, wanting desperately to believe he was right, that Harry was safe at home on Bannerman Road. Safe. She laughed weakly. Safe and worried sick. "I've done it to him again, haven't I?"

The Doctor gave her a crooked grin. "Not your fault, _terza_." His smile softened. "How many times have you told me that?"

She searched his eyes before laughing softly. "A lot." Then she closed her eyes and groaned. "How much of this is you and how much is me?"

"Mostly you at this point," he said. "Although I'll admit I've had better days." He reached out and rubbed the base of her neck. "I've been through a few rough teleports before, though. And I tend to bounce back faster than you."

"The Metebelis 3 spiders did a better job," she said, relaxing and leaning into his massaging hand. "Or is it just because I was younger then?"

"They originated on Earth. Their energy was more in harmony with yours. And mine. This energy..." He shook his head and blew out a breath. "My nerve endings are still jangling."

"Tell me about it," Sarah said ruefully.

He laughed grimly. "Unfortunately, I don't have to."

"Spiders?" They turned to look at Donna, who was still lying flat on her back, eye closed, in the grass. "Spiders?" she repeated, louder this time. Her eyes flew open and she sat up abruptly. Then her jaw dropped, she pressed a hand to her forehead, and she gasped. "What spiders? Where?"

"No spiders. Lie down." The Doctor gently pushed her back into the grass. "Donna had a bad experience with spiders," he said to Sarah.

"Didn't we all," she said, meeting his eyes.

He nodded. "Hers was a little bigger though. And it killed her fiance."

Sarah's features twisted in sympathy. "Oh. I am sorry."

"Don't be," Donna said as she lay back and closed her eyes. "Just tell me I'm having a bad dream. Champagne nightmare."

"Wish I could," Sarah said, looking around. "But I'm afraid we're not in Kansas anymore, Donna."

"Kansas?" Donna peered at her out of narrowed eyes for a second before the penny dropped. "Oh. Well. Where are we and how the bloody hell did we get here?"

"That...creature in Sarah's garden seems to have teleported us here," the Doctor answered. "But where here is? No clue."

Both women looked at him with a mixture of shock and expectancy. "Well, I haven't been everywhere," he said defensively.

"I don't suppose it was thoughtful enough to teleport the TARDIS with us," Sarah said.

The Doctor just snorted a laugh at that.

"Where is the little green sod?" Donna sat up and looked around.

"Haven't seen him. Her. It." The Doctor looked around. "And I woke up a good while before the two of you."

Sarah sighed, and, with a concerted effort, pushed herself up off the ground. The Doctor unfolded his long legs and stood too, hands out, ready to steady her if she wobbled. She was fine--for a second. Then the narrow heels of her dress shoes sank into the ground and she nearly toppled over backwards. The Doctor caught her and pulled her back to an upright position, but her heels stayed stubbornly embedded in the ground.

"It could at least have given us a chance to change," she said grumpily, as she slipped her feet out of her shoes, then bent over to pull them out of the dirt. "Be careful, Donna," she said as Donna also dizzily tried to get to her feet. "Don't suppose you have a couple more pairs of trainers in our sizes in those dimensionally transcendental pockets of yours?" she asked the Doctor hopefully as she peered at her utterly inappropriate footwear.

The corner of the Doctor's mouth turned down. "These pockets aren't dimensionally transcendental." He proved it by turning the two side pockets of his tux inside out. "Never bothered to install them in a dinner jacket."

"Oh," said Sarah, deflated. She sighed and looked wistfully at her shoes. "I love these shoes." Then she grasped the body of the shoe in one hand, the heel in the other, and, with a bit of an effort, broke off the heel. She repeated the maneuver with the other shoe, then slipped the now heel-less shoes back on her feet.

"Gravity seems about the same as earth," she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet to test it.

The Doctor nodded. "Close."

Donna wrinkled her nose as she, too, broke the heels off her shoes. "What a pong, though. Is it these plants?" She glowered at the grass surrounding them.

"I think it's just the atmosphere," the Doctor responded, lifting his nose in the air and taking a deep experimental sniff. "Higher sulfur content than Earth. Plenty of oxygen, though."

"Guess we'll get used to the smell," Sarah said reluctantly. She looked at the Doctor. "So. Do we have a plan?"

"Not much of one," the Doctor said. "Find out how we got here and how to get back." Two pairs of green eyes stared at him. "It's a pretty high level plan, admittedly," he said.

"Right, first step?"

"Get out of this field," Donna suggested. "Unless it covers the whole planet."

"Come here," the Doctor said, beckoning Sarah closer to him. She stepped up to him and he crouched, grasped her around her knees, then stood up and lifted her off the ground. She steadied herself with her hands on his shoulders, then straightened up and craned her neck when he had risen to his full height.

"What do you see?" he asked. He slowly turned in place to give her a panoramic view.

"Grass. Lots and lots of grass," she said. "Or whatever this stuff is."

He put her down and looked into her eyes. "No mountains? Forests? Nothing?"

"Not that I saw," she said. "Got a coin? Or will it be eenie-meenie-minie-mo?"

The Doctor turned slowly in a full circle, his eyes intent but unfocussed. He looked at Donna. "Donna? Any gut feelings?" She shook her head. "Sarah?"

"You need to ask?"

He smiled. "Not really. Just being polite." He bent down, picked up some dry bits of plant from the ground, and, reaching above the level of the grass, tossed them into the air. A gentle wind caught them and lazily carried them away.

"May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back," the Doctor said softly. "Right. _Allons-y_." And he started off walking in the direction the wind was blowing.

Donna and Sarah shared a look, then shrugged their shoulders, hiked up the skirts of their ball gowns, and trudged after the Doctor in their heel-less shoes into the featureless forest of grass.


	7. Chapter 7

Keeping up with the Doctor when you're five four in your sock feet and he's in a long-legged incarnation and in a hurry is a challenge at the best of times. And these most certainly weren't the best of times, thought Sarah Jane wearily as she slogged through the grass in his wake, trying to keep him in sight. High heels, even with the heels broken off, are not hiking boots. Evening dresses are not activewear. And a long, very long day that involved adult beverages and dancing into the wee hours wasn't the best preparation for a brisk march across alien terrain. Top all that with being teleported across the universe, God knew where, by a creature whose energy wasn't in synch with human or Time Lord physiology, and you definitely did not have the best of times.

At least she hadn't overdone the alcohol, she thought gratefully as she glanced over her shoulder periodically to make sure Donna was still bringing up the rear. She was. But barely. And frequently with a hand pressed to her forehead. Sarah was torn between the need to keep the Doctor in sight and the need to make sure their little party stayed together. If any of them got so much as five feet from the others, they disappeared in the grass. The Doctor kept disappearing as he easily outwalked them and then reappearing, stood standing and waiting for them to catch him up, when he realized what he had done. Then he'd be off again, and before long would disappear in the tall grass in front of her, his sonic screwdriver held high like a torch, periodically bringing it down to eye level to check readings, then raising it again, too focussed on his researches to remember to set a human-friendly pace.

A bath. That's what she'd planned. A nice, warm, relaxing bath to ease her sore feet and tired legs before crawling into bed for a good long kip. Well, no reason not to, she thought, letting her eyes drift halfway shut. She put her body on autopilot, mechanically lifting one leg after the other while her mind took her to the big claw-footed tub in the house on Bannerman Road, the tub filled with warm water, bubble bath, why not, she loved a bit of bubble bath, sinking into it, relaxing...

She was startled out of her walking daydream when she felt the Doctor's hands grasp her arms and physically stop her forward progress. She blinked and looked into his deep brown eyes which were dancing with amusement. "Bubble bath?" he asked.

She nodded with a sleepy half-smile at the remembered imagery.

"Donna?" he called over her shoulder. "You okay?"

"Not even close," she said. She started to fold her legs under her.

"Wait," he said sharply, startling both women into sudden alertness. He aimed the sonic screwdriver at the ground around them and flicked it on, scanning over a wide radius. Then he nodded. They both just looked at him in puzzlement. "Didn't want you sitting on something that might not appreciate being sat on," he said by way of explanation.

Donna and Sarah both frowned down at the ground. "It's okay," he reassured them. "No life signs. No animal life signs anyway. Plenty of vegetation."

They both sank to the ground gratefully. Donna pulled off her shoes and gingerly probed a spot on one heel.

"Blisters?" Sarah Jane asked.

Donna nodded. "You?"

Sarah nodded. "I don't think I dare take my shoes off. I'll never get them on again."

The Doctor's eyebrows came together as he knelt in front of Donna and checked her feet, then turned to Sarah, gently pulled her shoes off and examined the blisters on her heels. He sighed deeply. "Why didn't you say something?"

"What would you have done? Carried us?" she answered. His eyes met hers and she saw the deep worry and self-recrimination there. "You were preoccupied with getting us out of here alive. Didn't want to distract you from that," she said.

He wrapped both hands around her foot and she closed her eyes, relishing the coolness of his touch. "I wish I had a safe place to park you two while I go for help," he said. "But I'm afraid I'd never find you again if we split up." He took his hands off her foot and looked up at her. "Better?"

She opened her eyes and flexed her foot. "Yes," she said, surprised. "Much."

He nodded and wrapped his hands around her other foot. She sank back on her elbows and closed her eyes, paying attention this time to how the coolness of his fingers washed away the pain of the blisters and fatigue. She opened her eyes when she felt him let go of her foot, only to see him taking off his jacket and bending down to drape it over her. "Rest," he said simply, then turned to minister to Donna's blisters.

Donna was sitting, knees up, her arms wrapped around her legs, her head down. She jumped when he took her foot in his hands and pulled it back. "This isn't some kinky alien foot fetish thing, is it?" she asked, but with much less energy than her protests against body contact with him usually held. He shook his head solemnly and held out his hand. She looked at Sarah, who nodded encouragement. Donna slowly moved her foot toward him and he gently wrapped his hands around it as he had done for Sarah.

Sarah had rolled up on her side, pulled his jacket around her and pillowed her head on her arm. She watched him tending to Donna with a small warm smile on her face even as her eyelids drooped.

"So, does this sort of thing happen to you all the time?"

Sarah blinked herself back awake as she realized Donna's question was directed to her. "No. This is a first," she answered.

"Another unintended consequence of you and him..." Donna jerked her head at the Doctor and let her sentence hang unfinished.

"Seems to be," Sarah said.

"I certainly hope it doesn't become a regular occurrence," the Doctor muttered darkly, without looking up.

"Well. I wouldn't mind so much," Sarah said sleepily. "If aliens came to me for help. Whatever help I could give. So long as they didn't throw me across the universe without warning and then disappear." She yawned hugely. "And so long as they weren't trying to get me to help them conquer the earth or anything."

"I'd mind," the Doctor said emphatically. "What if you'd been brought here by yourself? You wouldn't have had a prayer." He gave the grass surrounding them a dark look.

"Do we have one even with you?" Donna asked him softly.

He met her serious gaze and a muscle jumped in his jaw. "Yes," he finally said, determinedly. "We do." He let go of Donna's foot and rocked back on his haunches. She lay down on her side, facing Sarah, and they both looked up at him as he went on. "We know the planet is inhabited by intelligent beings. Not only intelligent, but with the power to teleport across vast distances. They have to have some sort of civilization. We just need to find it."

"Why would it bring us here and then leave us in the middle of nowhere?" Sarah asked, as much to herself as to them.

The Doctor shook his head. "No idea. Something must have gone wrong."

"Or something scared it off," Donna said.

"Oh, that's a jolly thought, thanks for that," Sarah said.

"Well, it didn't eat us, at least, if that _is _what happened," the Doctor said. He stood up and scanned what he could see of the sky. "The atmosphere didn't kill us on arrival. That's a good thing. We didn't immediately freeze solid or burn up. That's a good thing. We can move around since the gravity is nearly earth-normal. A bit less, actually, which helps. Haven't found any water yet but there must be some for these plants to grow the way they do. Better be ready to catch some in case it rains. Sarah..."

He looked down at Sarah Jane and saw that her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and regular.

"Donna..." he said, looking at his other companion. Her eyes were also closed, her mouth hanging open slightly, and in the silence that followed he heard a soft snore.

He pulled a "meh" face and sighed deeply. After a moment, he stepped over Sarah and stretched out on the ground behind her, molding his long body to hers, wrapping his arms around her. She put her hands over his and nestled in with him, all without waking up. He breathed deeply, closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the back of her neck, then went totally still.

The lavender-tinged sun slowly sank toward the horizon and the light dimmed. Before anything like true dark could fall, though, another sun rose in the sky, this one casting a pink light over the two humans and the Time Lord, lying unmoving in the grass. The second sun was high in the sky before any of the three figures stirred.

Donna's eyes opened and she squinted up at the pink sun for a moment. Then she sat up, moaned softly, pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes and rubbed her face. She glanced around, found her shoes and slipped them on, clenching her teeth and grimacing all the while. Gingerly, she rose to her feet and started to step away from the little clearing their three bodies had made in the grass.

"Donna." She turned at the sound of the Doctor's soft call and saw him, still holding Sarah, but with his head raised and his dark eyes on her. "Don't wander off."

"Just need a bit of privacy. Nature calls," she said. She eyed him and Sarah for a moment and her lips twisted. "Looks like I should be giving the two of you some privacy and all as well."

The Doctor's brows furrowed. "No, we're fine," he said, sounding a bit bemused. "Don't go far."

"Trust me," she said, and parted the grass curtain to take one step behind its screening foliage.

The Doctor was up and scanning the skies with his sonic when she stepped back into view. Sarah was sitting with her legs crossed, the narrow skirt of her rumpled evening dress rucked up to mini-skirt length, finger-combing the snarls and tangles out of her hair. She smiled up at Donna. "Better?"

Donna rolled her eyes appreciatively. "Much. You?"

"Feel like a new woman." She glanced at the Doctor. "Thanks for the energy."

"Hmm?" he said absently, his concentration totally focussed on the sonic's readings. "Oh." He looked down at her and smiled. "Don't mention it. Glad it helped."

Donna scowled at them. "Energy?"

"Um hm." Sarah nodded and then clocked the scowl. "He gave me some. While I slept," she explained.

"He. Gave you. Energy," Donna said, tipping her head from side to side with each set of words for emphasis.

Sarah nodded again, and the Doctor looked at Donna.

"What did you think I was doing?"

"Well..." she said, a mixture of innuendo and uncertainly in her tone.

"Donna," Sarah said reprovingly. Donna looked at her and Sarah shook her head.

"Wish I could have given you some too," the Doctor said. "You needed it."

"Too right. Why didn't you?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "If you'd woken up and found me lying next to you with my arms around you, what would you have done?"

Donna opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again. She glanced from the Doctor to Sarah and then back. "It wouldn't have been pretty," she admitted.


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor picked up one of Sarah's shoes and examined it closely, fingering the curve of the heel and scowling at it thoughtfully. "Donna, come here," he said. She looked up at him questioningly. "I need your dress. And your shoes."

Donna's eyes went wide and she backed off a step.

"Come on, come on, come on," the Doctor said impatiently, waving her over to him. She cautiously approached him, then stood with an anxious frown as he tuned the sonic to a laser-like setting, bent down and used it to cut several small pieces from the hem of her sapphire gown. "Shoes," he said, and she put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she took off one shoe, then the other, and handed them to him. He twisted the sonic's controls, molded the bits of soft fabric to the backs of her shoes and zapped them with a frequency that caused the two materials to bond to each other. "See if that helps." He handed the shoes back to her and she slipped them on.

The Doctor laughed softly as her face told him how much it helped. He picked up Sarah's shoes and molded some more of the fabric to their backs, then handed them to her. "Like moleskin!" she said as she tried them on. "Oh, much better. I think I could actually walk in them now." She stood up, dusted herself down as best she could, and ran her fingers through her hair again. "A bit of a campfire and some hot coffee and this could almost be fun." Donna gave her a look that plainly doubted her sanity at that comment. Sarah grinned. "You ever been camping, Donna?"

"Fell asleep by a bonfire on the beach once," Donna said thoughtfully "Woke up freezing in the wee hours with the tide coming in. Does that count?"

The Doctor had been scanning a blade of grass from root to tip while they talked. "No coffee, sorry," he said. "And no campfire. But maybe..." His words trailed off as he retuned the sonic to an intense, narrow cutting beam and used it to sheer off one big grass blade at ground level. He trimmed away the top half, where it thinned out, and then cut down the middle of the thick bottom part. Peeling the tough outer rind away to both sides, he scooped out a bit of the gelatinous core, reset the sonic to scan it, then gave it an experimental sniff and taste. He scooped out some more and handed it to Sarah Jane, who looked at it dubiously. "Lots of moisture. Some nutrients," he assured her. He plopped some into Donna's hand. She looked at it, then rolled her eyes at Sarah, who shrugged.

"I've eaten stranger things," she said as she took a bite--or more of a slurp--of the gooey substance. It wasn't as bad as it looked, or as bad as she feared it would be. It wasn't coffee--and it wasn't eggs and bacon--but she was thirsty and hungry enough to enjoy the sensation of eating something, anything, and the moisture felt very welcome on her dry throat.

Three giant grass blades later, they all felt refreshed enough to start hiking. The Doctor checked their direction with the sonic and again led the way, but at a gentler pace this time, and with frequent rest stops. The pink sun sank in the sky and the light dimmed, but again, before it could come close to being full night, a new sun, this one with a bluish cast, rose.

"They can't all be suns," the Doctor said as he held up a hand to shield his eyes and squinted at the new celestial object through his fingers. "No planet could orbit three different suns. Two must be moons. Big, bright moons, but still. Moons."

They walked and rested and walked and rested as the blue sun-or-moonlight shone down on them. The Doctor sliced open grass blades for them at each rest stop, and they ate the gelatinous inner goo gratefully. It didn't offer much in the way of calories, but it staved off the dehydration that would have otherwise stopped them--at least, the humans--in their tracks in short order.

When the lavender moon (or sun) appeared again, they slept. When the pink sun (or moon) reappeared, they got up and started the routine all over. Their world contracted to walk-rest-eat-sleep-repeat in a recurring cycle of lavender, pink, and blue light. At first, the walks were short and the rests were long. But gradually, the blisters scabbed over and started to heal, muscles toughened up in response to constant use, and they found themselves able to go further and further before needing a break.

"What do you suppose they call a day on this planet?" Sarah mused during one rest stop, peering up at the sun (or moon) above. "The time it takes for one sun to cross the sky? Or all three?"

The Doctor looked up at the sky as well and pooched out his lower lip. "They might not even have the concept of day here. Since it never is night. Day is just...what it is. Always."

Sarah blinked a few times, trying to get her head around that idea. "So when the New landed on Earth, it might have been the first time it ever saw night," she said softly. "And stars."

A smile lighted up the Doctor's face. "Imagine that," he said, equally softly, his eyes drifting out of focus. Then his and Sarah's eyes met, and they shared a moment of wonder at the infinite variety of the universe.

"Little green sod," Donna muttered darkly.

* * *

"This wasn't the way I planned to lose ten pounds," Sarah said during another rest stop as she pulled her ever-more tattered gown away from her stomach, checking how loose it was getting. "But it is working."

Donna looked down at herself and smoothed the fabric of her dress tight over her bodice. "And I've gone down a cup size, at least," she said.

Sarah laughed. "Always the first place women lose weight. Not fair."

"Yeah, well, will make the running easier."

Sarah raised her eyebrows and grinned. "I never had that problem." She looked down at herself. "I think that's the real reason Harry liked it when I put on some weight." The grin suddenly disappeared as she thought about Harry.

"You're worried about him," Donna said softly.

Sarah nodded. "I just keep thinking....what if he was teleported here with us." She looked around at the dense grass that shrank their world to a matter of feet in each direction. "We could have been right next to him and never known. What if...." She trailed off.

"I _did _look for him," the Doctor said in a low voice.

Sarah reached out for him immediately and gave him a hug around his shoulders. "Oh, I know you did. I'm not saying... Just... well, what if he was teleported somewhere else? All by himself." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment, then opened them and stiffened her spine. "I just have to stop thinking about it." She took a deep breath. "Nothing I can do."

* * *

"If we ever do find water on this Godforsaken planet," Sarah mused to the sky as she lay back in the grass the next time they stopped for a sleep break. "I'm going to jump straight in."

"Better let me check for crocodiles first," the Doctor said mildly. She propped herself up on one elbow and gave him a look. He grinned crookedly. "Or other things that might find you tasty."

She lay back down. "I'm too filthy to be tasty," she said. "Nothing could stand me. I can't stand me," she added, rolling her eyes. "I'd be perfectly safe."

The Doctor's grin grew. "They might like the extra flavor."

"Mmm," Sarah moaned. "I don't." She waved a hand in front of her face. "Don't get downwind of me."

The Doctor pulled a dismissive face and puffed out a breath. "I got used to the smell of humans long ago," he said. "Don't worry about me."

Donna and Sarah both sat slowly up and stared at him.

"What?" he asked, suddenly wary.

"The smell. Of humans." Donna repeated emphatically.

"Yeah," the Doctor said shortly, looking ready to bolt into the grass. "What?" he asked again.

"We. Smell."

"Of course you do. Everything does."

Donna and Sarah exchanged a horrified look, then turned back to stare at the Time Lord.

"Even when we're clean? Which we are _so _not at the moment," Sarah admitted.

"Well, yeah," he answered. "Then you smell like...clean humans. Which you _are _so not at the moment," he confirmed.

"Ooh." Sarah gave a little squeak of a moan, mortified beyond words.

"What?" he asked again, eyebrows furrowing. "You said so yourself."

"That doesn't mean you have to agree," Donna explained as if to a three-year old.

He blinked at her, mouth slightly open, for a second. "You want me to lie?"

"Yes," she said, immediately and emphatically.

"Ah." He stared at her. "Donna. You smell like a rose."

"Thank you," she said with a nod of acknowledgement.

The Doctor looked at Sarah. "Do you want me to lie?"

She laughed helplessly, shaking her head. "I want a wash. Since you asked."

"I know you do," he said. "Wish I could give you one." Her eyebrows shot up, and he backtracked. "I mean...give you a bath." Her eyebrows went higher. "I mean...a place...an opportunity...for a bath," he finally managed to blurt out.

"So it does bother you. The way we...smell," she said, screwing up her face at the last word.

"No. Not at all." He smiled and his eyes grew thoughtful. "Takes me back a bit, if you must know. Reminds me of Jamie and Victoria."

"Who were they? Dirty people?" Donna asked.

The Doctor gave a short laugh. "By twenty-first century standards, I suppose they were. Jamie travelled with me for, oh, yonks. He was from the eighteenth century. And Victoria grew up in the nineteenth century. No daily showers for either of them."

"Victoria," Sarah mused. "You called me Victoria once."

"Did I?" He scratched the back of his neck and wrinkled his brow, searching his memory. "I was so absent-minded back then." His eyes widened. "Oh! Right. You were wearing one of her dresses."

"Did it smell?" Donna asked.

Sarah laughed. "Not that I recall. Not when I put it on anyway. By the end of the day, it wasn't so fresh anymore."

"Well," the Doctor said, drawing the word out. "It was a long day. Fighting mummies and robots, teleporting to Mars and Egypt and all."

Sarah laughed again. "True."

Donna looked from one of them to the other. "Mars?" she finally said, looking at Sarah, a question in her tone. Sarah nodded and Donna turned to look at the Doctor. "So you _are_..."

"No," he interrupted firmly. "I was just visiting."


	9. Chapter 9

"Are you getting taller or is the grass getting shorter?"

The Doctor threw an amused glance over his shoulder at Sarah Jane. "You just noticed?"

"That you're getting taller?"

He chuckled. "That the grass is getting shorter."

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment without stopping her forward progress, then opened them again and stared around her at the curtain of grass, trying to see it with fresh eyes. "The scenery doesn't change much back here," she said. "Gets a bit monotonous." She looked over her shoulder at Donna, who acknowledged the point with a weary nod of her head. "Feels like we're not even moving sometimes. Like we're walking in place. The view never changes. Just...grass. And the back of you." Her eyes drifted for the umpteenth time up and down the back side of his lean body. "Not that I'm complaining," she said thoughtfully.

He looked quickly over his shoulder again, eyebrows up. "Sarah Jane!" He sounded shocked.

"What?" She gave him her best wide-eyed innocent look, but it dissolved into a grin in no time. He tutted at her, then turned to face front and continued breasting the grass, breaking trail for his companions.

Sarah smiled at his back, running her eyes up and down his slim frame appreciatively. It was so good to be with him, even under these circumstances. Stranded on an alien planet, no food, no water, filthy, smelly, stuck in miserably inappropriate clothing, no idea how or when or even if they would get home, and yet... She let the joy of his presence fill her soul. Nothing truly bad could happen to her as long as he was close by, her heart told her, and she believed it. Oh, her head knew better. After all, she'd spent years with him, the two of them going from one truly bad thing to another, barely scraping through more often than she liked to remember. But they always had scraped through. Together. And if they didn't this time, well... She had decided, all those years ago, after the first few hair-breadth escapes, that she would rather die with him than live without him. That's why she had stayed with him, in the TARDIS, instead of high-tailing it back to Croydon at the first opportunity. And that decision hadn't changed, even after thirty years of living without him. If anything, it had become stronger. That thought, that sure knowledge, hit her somewhere in the solar plexus as she walked along in his wake. He didn't turn, or stop, but his head fell forward and she knew that, even though they both had been tiptoeing around the bond that linked them since his return, her sudden realization had gone straight to his hearts. She felt a momentary rush of crazily mixed feelings, fear, love, gratitude, guilt, joy, terror and more, sweep through her. Then she felt him gently pulling back, not slamming a door, more like slowly turning off a tap until it was at a mere trickle.

He stopped, turned, and fixed her with those deep, brown eyes. For a moment, the yearning in them tore at her heart. Then he put his hands around her waist and, with a quick, sure motion, lifted her into the air.

"What do you see?"

She was too surprised for the view to register for a second, but then looked around over the top of the grass. "Something..." she said, her voice trailing off as she peered in the direction they had been heading for what seemed like forever. "Something that's...not grass!" she finished with delight.

The Doctor put her down and grinned.

"What was it?" Donna asked, coming up to stand side by side with Sarah.

Sarah shook her head. "Not a hundred per cent sure. Could be...trees?" she said questioningly, looking up at the Doctor for confirmation.

"Could be."

"Let us have a look, then," Donna said, staring expectantly at the Doctor, hands on her hips. He just stared back at her for a moment. "Come on. Hoist away."

The Doctor shrugged, then took a firm grip on Donna's waist and, with a grunt of effort, lifted her in the air. Donna swivelled her head all around, then looked in the direction they'd been travelling. "Those orangey things?"

"Um-hm," Sarah agreed.

"Mmm," Donna murmured. "Could be."

The Doctor set her down, then pressed his hand into the small of his back and arched backwards. "Whatever they are, they're a change of scene. And I don't know about you two, but I'm ready for that." Sarah and Donna both laughed. "Yeah, I thought so," he said with a crooked grin. "_Allons-y_!"

Donna groaned. "I'm going to _allons-y_ you one of these days," she muttered as she started tramping after him again.

He stopped and spun around so quickly Sarah nearly ran into him. He caught her by the upper arms and held her, but his eyes looked back over her head. "Donna? Something wrong?"

"Something wrong? Something wrong?" Donna's jaw dropped and she gave several exasperated huffs of air as words, for once, failed her. Her arms waved out to her sides and she glared at the surrounding grass. "Tell me something that's right!"

"Well..." the Time Lord started to say before pausing for thought.

"Don't," Sarah said, shaking her head at him. "Just...don't." He raised his eyebrows at her. "It was a rhetorical question. Trust me."

He tipped his chin up. "Oh. Right." He looked over her head again. "Donna? You okay?"

All the anger and frustration drained out of Donna at his concerned tone. "Sorry," she said, looking at the ground. "I don't mean to be a..."

"You're not," Sarah assured her before she could finish her thought.

Donna gave her a direct look. "I'm not surprised Spaceboy can manage without proper food. But aren't you starving? I am."

Sarah took in a deep, thoughtful breath, then blew it out. "I suppose I am, too. But..." Donna's eyebrows shot up as she waited for Sarah to go on. "I..erm...well. Food and I have had a bit of an on-again off-again relationship lately."

"Yeah?" Donna asked.

Sarah nodded. "When I...lost my appetite a few months back, I..." She paused, feeling the Doctor's discomfort as she raised the subject of what had happened to her the last time he left. She turned to give him a reassuring smile, then faced Donna again. "I was hungry a lot. Physically. But...it just didn't seem to matter." She shook her head, remembering. "It's sort of that way again now."

"Well, it matters to me," Donna said emphatically.

"Want me to cut you some grass?" the Doctor offered helpfully.

Donna just groaned and Sarah gave her an understanding smile. "We could pretend it's prime rib," she suggested. "Or a big juicy cheeseburger."

"I don't think I have that good an imagination," Donna moaned. She shook her head. "Sorry," she said again after a moment. "I know it's no one's fault. And moaning about it doesn't help." She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and set her lips in a firm line. "Right. Whinge over. Let's get on with it." She met the Doctor's eye and gave him a very small smile. "_Allons-y_."

Sarah felt a warm glow of affection radiating from the Doctor as he returned Donna's smile. "Brave heart, Donna," he said softly, approvingly. Then he turned and plunged on through the grass, leaving his companions to trail behind him.

It took several more marches before the scenery changed in any meaningful way. The grass gradually got shorter and thinned out as other forms of vegetation--ground covers, shrubs, the odd viney-looking thing--appeared. Finally they reached a point where they could all three see over the grass to where the trees stood.

"Maybe it's autumn here," Sarah said, gazing at the fluorescent orange leaves. They formed a beautiful contrast to the onyx bark on the trunks and branches of the trees.

"Maybe. Or maybe the leaves here turn green in the autumn," the Doctor said with a smile.

Excitement made them pick up the pace despite their hunger and weariness and before long they were standing under the branches of one of the large, leafy plants.

"Fruit!" Donna said excitedly, reaching up toward one of the many small pear-shaped objects that were hanging from the boughs.

"Wait!" the Doctor said sharply, freezing her in mid-reach. She turned to look at him as he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the tree from root to twig, then gave the fruit an intense scrutiny. He finally turned the device off and fixed the hanging fruit with a sour look.

Donna's shoulders slumped. "It's not safe to eat?"

"Oh, it should be," the Doctor said, still looking unhappy. "Nothing toxic. The usual mix of carbohydrates, sugars, vitamins, minerals and fiber." He waggled his head from side to side. "Give or take."

"Then what's wrong?" Sarah asked.

"I hate pears," he said disgustedly.

Sarah stifled a laugh, then composed her face in serious lines. "They probably don't taste anything like earth pears, you know. They just happen to be the same shape and size."

He scanned the tree again, his lip curled. "Yeah, I know. But...I really hate pears."

"Well, I love them," Donna said, plucking one from the branch above her. She looked at it closely, turning it over in her hand, then looked at the Doctor again. "You're sure it's safe?"

He nodded and she lifted the fruit toward her lips. "Well..." he said, and she froze in place. "Pretty sure." Donna stared at him. "Ninety-nine per cent sure," he clarified. Her stare turned into a glare. "Won't kill you," he added, and she looked down at the fruit again, then raised it to her lips and opened her mouth to bite it. "Probably. Just..." Donna froze. "Might not agree with you. That's all."

"I don't care. I'm starving," she said. She bit into the fruit determinedly.

It screamed.

Donna jumped like a startled deer and threw it from her like a hot rock. "What?" she gasped. "What was that?"

The Doctor walked over to the fruit and touched it with the toe of his trainers, watching it roll around in response. He bent down, picked it up, and examined the tooth marks on its smooth surface.

Sarah stepped up behind him and peered at the fruit in his hand. "Is it alive?" she asked softly, as if she were afraid it would overhear.

"Course it is," the Doctor answered promptly. "Didn't you see Donna just pull it off the tree?"

"You could have warned me," Donna said, hand pressed to her heart.

The Doctor looked up at her, puzzled. "You heard it?"

"Heard it?" she asked. "D'you think I'm deaf?"

"Well...." He stopped at the look on Donna's face and turned to Sarah instead. "You heard it too?"

She nodded. "Loud and clear. And horrible."

"Hmm," the Doctor mused. "Interesting." Both women stared at him, waiting. After a moment, he became aware of their expectant gazes and went on. "But you don't hear the screams when you bite into an Earth fruit?"

"Earth fruit doesn't scream," Donna said emphatically.

"Course it does," the Doctor said. "Just not as loud."


	10. Chapter 10

"Earth fruit...screams?" Sarah asked.

"Course it does," the Doctor repeated. He wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. "Depending how fresh it is. They're loudest when they've just been picked." He reached up with a long arm and plucked one of the bigger fruits from a high branch, then handed it to Sarah.

"No, thanks," she said, backing away a step.

"Come on," he said gently. "You're starving. Besides, I need you to taste test it."

"But...it doesn't want to be eaten."

He chuckled. "It doesn't care. It's not sentient. Just alive."

Sarah frowned at the fruit. "Well...."

"Go on," he said.

She took it from him and started to rub it across the front of her dress to clean it, then stopped. That worked for polishing apples at home, but with the state her clothes were in, she'd probably just make the fruit dirtier if she tried it. She gave the Doctor one last doubtful glance, then tentatively sank her teeth into the alien fruit.

She jumped when the scream came, then froze, her face screwed up unhappily. But the Doctor was nodding encouragement, so she finished taking a bite and then gingerly chewed the bit of fruit. As it didn't seem to have anything more to say about the process, and it tasted absolutely marvelous, she didn't need any more encouragement.

"Taste like a pear?" the Doctor asked, leaning his head in toward her, his eyebrows furrowed.

Sarah took another bite, ignored the ensuing scream, and chewed thoughtfully. "Not at all," she assured him. "Donna?" She turned to the red-haired woman for confirmation.

Donna had chucked the first fruit away so precipitately when it screamed that she hadn't actually managed a taste, so she picked another one and, with a deep breath and a determined look, bit a chunk out of it. She closed her eyes at the scream but persisted in chewing, and in a moment, her eyes opened, and her eyebrows went up in pleased surprise. "Not a bit like a pear," she said. She chewed some more. "Not like anything I've ever tasted."

"Here, try some," Sarah said, offering the unbitten side of her fruit to the Doctor. He didn't actually take a step back, but he leaned away warily. "Come on then," she said with a grin. "Taste it with me." She took another big bite and, as she chewed, closed her eyes and sent the flavor she was experiencing into his mind. She felt him resist for a second, then his curiosity and hunger overcame his reluctance and he was inside her head, tasting the fruit with her.

Sarah wasn't sure which felt better, putting something besides grass goo in her achingly empty stomach, or renewing the touch of their minds. Between the two, it was the best moment she'd had since they'd been teleported to this world. She opened her eyes and grinned euphorically at him. He grinned back, then took a big bite out of the fruit she held. As he chewed and swallowed,she experienced the flavor of the fruit through Time Lord taste buds as well as her own, felt the juice moistening his dry mouth and throat as it was moistening hers, and, to her surprise, felt his hunger, as deep and aching as her own. She looked at him with wide eyes.

"I do need to eat," he said in response to her unspoken question. "I can manage without food better than a human can, but still... It's been a long time since nibbles at the Regimental Ball."

"Hasn't it just," Donna agreed around a mouthful of fruit.

"Even for a Time Lord," he agreed quietly, picking two more of the alien fruits, biting into one and handing the other to Sarah Jane.

They walked on, eating as they went, feeling stronger than they had in days for having a bit of real food in their stomachs.

"I could still murder a pizza," Donna said, throwing away the core of her third fruit.

Sarah and the Doctor "mmm'd" dreamily in unison at the thought of pizza, then laughed.

"Better not overdo it," the Doctor said as Donna reached for another fruit. "Give your stomach a chance to adjust."

Just then, Sarah stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide, listening for all she was worth. The Doctor stopped a second later and turned to look enquiringly at her. "Do you hear it?" she breathed.

He didn't bother to ask what, just lifted his chin and turned his head slowly from side to side. Then a huge, open-mouthed grin lighted up his face. "Come on!" he cried, and took off at a run.

Donna and Sarah caught up with him quickly. They found him stopped, standing, on a low bank by what looked for all the world like a wide river of cool, clear water.

"Water!" Sarah said, heading at a run toward the bank.

The Doctor threw out an arm in front of her just as she was about to leap off. "Whoa. Easy. Let me check it out first."

"It looks like water, it sounds like water, it sparkles like water... What else could it be?"

He peered at her. "Acid that could dissolve you." Sarah frowned at the river, then at the Time Lord. He went on. "Or it could be full of toxic microbes. Or nasty big beasties that could swallow you at a gulp."

That cooled her ardor for a wash...just about. "Oh." She looked longingly at the smooth, peaceful-seeming surface. "Is it?"

The Doctor had whipped out his sonic and was beaming it at the water, taking readings, changing the settings, aiming it at different parts of the river and taking more readings.

"Doesn't seem to be," he muttered after a bit. "Just a few life forms above the size of plankton and they're not very big. Not big enough to swallow you at a gulp, at any rate."

"And the pH?"

He consulted the sonic again. "Seven. Near enough anyway. Tad alkaline."

"Alright then," Sarah said, taking a step closer to the bank.

The Doctor held her back again and gave her a stern look. "Piranha are not very big, as fish go," he said pointedly. "But you don't want to go swimming with them."

Sarah's shoulders sagged. She blew out of a puff of air and reluctantly stepped back from the edge of the bank. "Are they alien piranha, then?" she asked wistfully.

The Doctor twisted the sonic and beamed it here and there at the surface of the water. "Don't seem to be," he muttered.

Sarah perked up again. "So." He looked up from the sonic and into her eyes. "It is water?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Safe for bathing?"

He paused a moment before answering. "As far as I can tell."

She fixed him with a wild stare and a devilish grin. "Then come on." She held out a hand to him.

He looked at her hand as if it had suddenly grown scales. "Sarah..."

"Come on," she insisted, kicking off the battered remnants of her shoes.

The Doctor looked at Donna for support, but she just folded her arms and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm waiting to see if you two get eaten," she said helpfully. The Time Lord gave her a quick glower, then turned back to Sarah.

"You were never this cautious in the old days," Sarah said. "You'd just jump right in."

"And that didn't always work out very well, did it? I'm older and wiser now," he said with a frown. Then his expression softened, the old glint came into his eyes, and one corner of his mouth curled up. "Oh, what the hell," he said, pulling off his trainers, dropping his jacket on the ground and taking her hand. Together, they backed up a few steps from the edge of the bank. "Ready?" he asked.

She grinned. "Always."

"One...two...three!" On three, they took off running at top speed toward the river. When they reached the drop-off, they leaped as high and as far as they could, screaming at the top of their lungs, arms and legs flailing wildly.

Sarah felt herself pulled through the air as his long legs catapulted them both much farther out over the water than she ever could have managed on her own. For one glorious moment they soared together, then...

Splash! They landed in the river.

"Bloody hell!" Sarah sputtered as her mouth fell open and she wrapped her arms around herself. "You didn't warn me it was f-f-f-freezing!"

"Is it?" the Doctor said mildly as he lay back on the surface of the water, waving his arms gently and flutter kicking to keep himself afloat. "I s'pose it is a bit bracing."

"B-b-b-bracing!" Sarah gasped incredulously as a series of full-body shivers shook her.

"You humans have such a narrow range of temperatures you find comfortable," the Doctor mused, back-stroking his way in a circle around her, keeping his head turned in her direction all the while. "Amazing you ever manage to conquer the universe the way you do."

"Th-tha-that's because we..." Sarah blew out of puff of air. "W-w-we're adaptable."

The Doctor stopped paddling around and stood up. The water only came to the level of his waist. "You need some help?" he asked, mostly kindly, but with a bit of a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"N-n-no, I'm..." She moaned, blew out another big breath, and bit her lower lip. "...getting used to it." She inhaled and exhaled deeply a few times, then took in a breath, held it, and ducked under the water.

Her skin had gone numb by this point, but numb or not, she still felt filthy and utterly sick of it. She scrubbed at her hair underwater, digging at her scalp with her fingernails. Oh, God, glorious water, cold though it was. She didn't let herself think about a tub of it, warm and full of bubbles, just relished the icy touch of the river, washing away the dust and dirt of...how long had it been? Longer than she could remember ever going without a wash before, that's for sure.

She came up for air and rubbed her hands over her arms, scrubbing away at the accumulated dirt. She glanced back toward the riverbank and saw that Donna was doing the same, although more cautiously, wading in up to her ankles and bending down to splash water on her arms and face. Sarah sank back down until just her head and shoulders were above the water, then shimmied out of her wet ball gown. Pulling it off over her head, she waved it around in the water, then pulled it up, gathering it in her two hands and wringing out the water, sweat, and dirt. She started to repeat the process when she suddenly felt something touch her leg underwater.

She shrieked, dropped her dress and leaped as far away from that spot as she could. She was about to make a run for the bank when a head emerged from the water, wet brown hair plastered to its forehead, mouth open in a big cheeky grin.

Sarah rolled her eyes at him. "Not funny," she said dryly. He just grinned wider, dove after her dress, snagged it and brought it back to her. "Thank you," she said primly, taking it from him and reluctantly putting it back on. At least it was a _little _cleaner now, she thought as she walked out of the river and up on the bank, running her hands down her front and sides to try to squeegee as much water out of her clothes as she could.

The Doctor emerged from the river behind her, pulled off his wet shirt, rolled it up, gave it a good wring, then shook it out and hung it over a nearby shrub. He retrieved his dinner jacket from the bank, pulled the sonic out of a pocket, and gave the wet shirt a quick going-over with a wide-angle blue beam. As he pulled it back on, he glanced at Sarah.

"Ooh," he said, frowning. He reached out with a long finger and gently touched her lips. "Interesting shade of blue. Not sure I've ever seen that on a human before."

"It was w-w-worth it," Sarah said through chattering teeth. "I feel a h-h-hundred percent better."

"Except for freezing," Donna observed. She had found a good-sized boulder and was half-sitting, half-leaning on it, shaking the front of her skirt in the air to encourage it to dry.

"Right. Exc-c-cept for that," Sarah agreed.

The Doctor shook his head, chuckling softly. "Give me your dress."

Sarah pulled the wet garment off over her head and handed it to him, then wrapped her arms around herself. She hadn't thought she could get any colder, but standing there in just her wet skimpies, she found out she'd been wrong.

"Donna, stand up," the Doctor said as he wrung the worst of the water out of Sarah's dress and then shook it and hung it on the shrub, as he had done with his shirt.

Donna gave him a perplexed look, but obliged.

"Step away from the rock," the Doctor added, when she didn't do anything _but _stand up.

She jumped away from the boulder and looked at it suspiciously. "Why? Is it going to bite me?"

He grinned and aimed the sonic at her recent seat. "No, I just need to get Sarah warmed up." An intense blue beam shot out of the screwdriver and played over the rock. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but as the seconds ticked by, Sarah began to feel warmth emanating from its surface. She stepped closer, holding her hands out to it as if it were a roaring fire.

"Careful," the Doctor said softly. She glanced over at him. "Don't get in the beam."

Donna was also holding her hands out toward the rock, enjoying the heat. "Why not? Wouldn't it warm her up?"

"Mmm-hmm," the Doctor agreed. "Just like a microwave warms up your dinner."

Sarah and Donna exchanged wide-eyed looks and stepped back a pace in unison. The Doctor threw them a crooked grin, then changed the settings on the sonic and started drying Sarah's dress.

"Oh, I want to hug this rock," Sarah said, hovering over it and letting the heat it was now radiating start to thaw her out.

"Kinky," Donna said.

Sarah laughed. Before she could respond, though, Donna straightened to her full height and stared intently into the trees. "What was that?" she asked, all humor gone from her voice.

The Doctor was instantly alert. "What was what?" he asked, handing Sarah her nearly-dry dress.

"Something moved. Back there," Donna said, nodding toward the trees.

Sarah quickly threw the dress on, then scanned the woods behind them. "There. I saw it too." she said as a flash of movement caught her eye.

The Doctor started moving, quickly but cautiously, in that direction. Sarah and Donna followed.

A head popped up out of the bushes twenty feet in front of them. A shaggy, pale-green head with mossy fur and luminous dark eyes.

"It's the New!" Sarah breathed.

"Oi! You!" Donna had come to the same conclusion and was hollering at the creature.

"Shhh." The Doctor shushed her. "Don't scare it away. We need it." He glanced around, assessing the terrain. "Spread out," he said quietly, heading off to the left.

Sarah and Donna exchanged a quick look, then the red-head started easing off to the right while Sarah proceeded slowly up the middle toward the creature that held the power to send them home. _Oh, home!_ Sarah thought longingly, her pulse pounding in her ears, her eyes fixed on the shrubbery ahead. _I never appreciated you properly before!_

The creature turned its enormous eyes on her as she slowly approached. It had communicated telepathically with them before, so she did her best to send out calming, non-threatening thoughts, letting it know how much they wanted to talk to it, how very happy they were to see it again, and that they held no grudges against it for what it had done. "Easy," she said softly when it startled as a branch snapped under her foot. "Everything's all right."

The creature jumped at the sound of her voice and started to leap away. The Doctor and Donna had circled around behind it, though, and were ready. As it tried to bolt between them, the Doctor caught it in his long arms and held it firmly, one arm around its body, the other in front of its chest.

Sarah and Donna hurried up to help him contain the agitated creature.

"OK, you," Donna said, grabbing it by its cheeks and turning its face so it looked directly into hers. "What is your story? Why did you bring us here and then abandon us in the middle of nowhere?"

The creature, unable to turn away, stared into Donna's blazing green eyes with a look of sheer terror. It bucked and struggled but Sarah and the Doctor held it tightly. Finally, it opened its mouth.

"Ma-a-a-a-a!" it bleated, sounding for all the world like a little lost lamb.


	11. Chapter 11

"Don't you ma-a-a-a me!" Donna stormed in the creature's face. "You little green..."

"Donna." The Doctor interrupted her tirade.

"What?" she snapped, not looking away from the creature.

"I don't think this is the New."

Startled, Donna turned to look at him without loosening her grip on the frightened creature's cheeks.

"It does seem smaller than I remember," Sarah agreed.

"And...dimmer," the Doctor said. "In both senses of the word."

"Ma-a-a-a!" the creature bleated again, sounding quite dim indeed.

Donna let go of its face and stepped back, looking at it searchingly. "Maybe something happened to it." She frowned. "Maybe bringing us here was too much for it. Blew its fuses. Or something."

Sarah loosened her grip on the creature's furry body fractionally in order to study it better. "Or maybe it's a young one. And they don't develop telepathic and teleport powers until they mature."

The Doctor's mouth twisted to the side unhappily. "Or maybe it's another species entirely. Related, but..less advanced. Like humans and apes."

Both women turned to stare at him out of the tops of their eyes.

"Sorry," he said in a small voice. With his free hand, he dug in his pockets, eventually retrieving his long-abandoned bow tie from one. Holding the creature's body under one elbow, he tied the bow tie around its long, slim neck like a collar.

"You going to adopt it?" Donna asked skeptically.

"It's the most encouraging thing we've seen since we got here," the Doctor responded. "I'm not just letting it go."

"If it is a young one, maybe it can lead us to the New. The old New, that is." She frowned slightly at her inadvertent oxymoron.

"Right," the Doctor said. He twined his long fingers under the makeshift collar and let go of the creature's body, nodding at Sarah to do the same. She backed off slowly, and the creature gave a half-hearted buck-jump, then settled. The Doctor patted himself down with his free hand, frowning, then scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. "Do either of you have anything we could use as a leash?"

Sarah looked down at herself. She didn't have a lot that he didn't know she had, especially after their swim. She looked over at Donna, who returned her gaze thoughtfully.

"Hose?"

"Might as well," Sarah agreed. "Nothing but ladders at this point."

They both raised their skirts and unhooked their stockings, which were in tatters, and peeled them off. They had discussed taking them off early on, when it became obvious they weren't wearing well under their current lifestyle, but decided they had at least afforded their legs some protection in the long hike through the serrated-edged grass blades, and some measure of warmth in the relative cool between sun cycles. Still, Sarah wasn't sad to see them go. She knotted hers together, then took Donna's and tied them to hers. She handed the length of nylon to the Doctor, who tied one end around the collar and wrapped the other snugly around his hand.

Now that it was free, the creature shook its head a few times, then scratched at the unfamiliar collar with a rear hoof, stretching its neck backwards and curling its body into a tight letter C. The Doctor gave a little tug on the impromptu leash, which upset the creature's balance and forced it to put all four feet back on the ground. It gave another shake of its head and neck, then calmly reached out and plucked several leaves off the shrub in front of it. It stood, looking around at them with wide, vacant eyes, and chewed placidly.

"Doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere," Donna commented after a few minutes. The creature bit another mouthful of leaves off the plant, turned to look at Donna, and opened its mouth.

"Ma-a-a!" it said emphatically.

"Don't bleat with your mouth full," she told it. "It's rude."

The Doctor suddenly straightened to his full height, staring intently at a point off in the middle distance.

"What?" Sarah asked.

"Something moved," he said, brown eyes scanning the landscape with full attention.

"The New?" Sarah asked hopefully.

He shook his head, frowning. "Not sure. But it didn't look like it." He stood, staring, for another second. "Hide," he suddenly commanded.

Sarah and Donna looked at each other, then around at the sparse vegetation in the area where they stood. "Where?" Donna asked.

The Doctor quickly pulled his gaze back to their immediate vicinity. "Up," he said shortly. He held out a hand, low enough for Sarah to step onto it. She put her foot in his hand and gave a spring for the lowest-hanging branch. He boosted her up, adding the considerable strength of his wiry arm to her upward motion, and in a split second she found herself scrambling on top of a thick black tree limb.

The Doctor held his hand out and down to boost Donna up beside Sarah. She took one step onto his hand, then planted her other foot on the creature's sturdy rump and reached for the nearest branch. Sarah wrapped one arm tightly around the limb she was balancing on and stretched her other arm down to help Donna.

Donna managed to get her arms around a branch, but then hung there, swinging gently back and forth, until the Doctor got both hands under her feet and his shoulder under her bum and pushed. Then she managed to hoist herself up into the foliage and hide.

"What about you?" Sarah called down to him.

"I'll be fine," he said dismissively.

"Then why are we hiding?" Donna asked.

"Because whatever it is, it might be intimidated if it saw all three of us at once. Or it might be hostile. And without the TARDIS to translate for you, you wouldn't be able to talk to it."

"And you will?"

"I speak all languages," he said, sounding very sure of himself.

"But..."

"Sh!" He cut Sarah's objection off with a sharp shush that brooked no argument.

Sarah compressed her lips unhappily, but shushed. From her new vantage point, eight feet above the ground, she could see the movement he'd detected. And it was coming closer. Rapidly.

The Doctor stood, the stocking leash wrapped around one hand, his other hand resting on the withers of the creature. His weight was balanced on the balls of his feet, his muscles in a state of relaxed tension, ready for action but warily waiting on the new arrival. It jetted toward him at the speed of a racing whippet, but with an entirely different gait. As it came closer, Sarah could see that it definitely wasn't one of the New--or even the Not-so-New, as she found herself calling the creature they had caught and collared.

She frowned, blinked, squinted, rubbed her eyes and squinted some more, trying to get the outline of the new creature to come clear. As it came closer, she saw it wasn't her eyes that were at fault. The outline of the creature wasn't clear. In fact, it changed as she watched. It moved by altering its shape, throwing out a wide pseudopod like an amoeba, then bringing the rest of its body up to join it, then throwing another extension of itself forward, all at an incredible rate of speed.

It circled around behind the Doctor and the Not-so-New, and finally slowed. At rest, it appeared to be nothing more than a quivering membrane filled with brownish, mucky-looking fluid. But as it approached the Not-So-New, it threw out a long, whip-like extension of itself and flicked the green creature on its hindquarters.

The Not-so-New squealed in fright and leaped away, its long neck jerking back as it hit the limit of its hosiery leash.

"Easy," the Doctor said, his voice low and soothing as he approached it, going hand-over-hand up the leash to get close to it. He ran his free hand down its neck gently, then looked back at the thing that had frightened it. "That wasn't necessary," he said firmly.

The whip-like extension had been resorbed into the body of the creature after it flicked the Not-so-New, but a second one now grew effortlessly out of it and flicked the Doctor on his _gluteus maximus. _

"Oyah!" the Doctor yelped, jumping away from it. He frowned and rubbed the offended part of his anatomy. "That _really _wasn't necessary!"

The thing oozed its way closer. "You're as bad as Jack Harkness with a wet towel," the Doctor told it, backing away, still rubbing his sore bum.

Another long, thin protuberance shot out of the creature toward the Doctor, but this time he was ready for it. He jumped back and reached for it at the same time, grabbing the end of it before it could hit him. "Gotcha!" he cried. Then he looked down at his hand, which held nothing but a slimy bit of membrane. The creature sucked itself back together and quivered. "Or possibly not," the Doctor said with a disgusted look, shaking the mess off and then rubbing his hand on his trousers. "By the way, I'm the Doctor. And you are?" He leaned toward the amoeba-thing, eyebrows up, expression hopeful.

A long, thin pseudopod snaked toward the Doctor's face. He jerked away and it shot past him, missing the end of his nose by the tiniest fraction of an inch. "Annoying," the Doctor said, finishing his own sentence. "And persistent."

The Not-so-New, frightened by the pseudopod, made an unexpected lunge away from the blobby creature, taking the Doctor with it for a few steps. The thing oozed along in their wake. The Doctor cast a very quick glance up into the tree branches where Donna and Sarah lay hidden, then looked down at the amoeba-thing. "So, you want us to go this way?" He took another step away from the thing and it followed. "You want to take me to your leader?" the Doctor asked hopefully. Then he grinned. "I love saying that."

The amoeba-thing started quivering again and made a noise like a big drop of water landing in a pot. "Oh! You speak!" the Doctor said, delighted, leaning toward the creature. "Could you repeat that?"

A pseudopod shot out in his direction and he quickly straightened and took a step back. "Guess not." He slowly meandered away from the thing, walking a ragged zig-zag pattern, the Not-so-New reluctantly following on his leash. The amoeba-thing veered from side to side behind them in response, working them like a sheep dog working a pair of stray sheep, keeping them going in the direction from which it had come.

"Right," the Doctor said emphatically. He glanced up into the branches again. "Apparently there's something worth finding in this direction. _Allons-y!_" He turned his back on the creature and, the Not-so-New by his side, strode briskly off in a straight line. The amoeba-thing followed, seeming content now that its quarry was cooperating.

"I think I'll call you Rodney," the Doctor said amicably to the Not-so-New as they ambled along, side by side, in the pink sunshine. "Had a horse named Arthur once. Well. Didn't really have him. Just sort of made his acquaintance. But I could see he was an Arthur right off. Good name for a horse, Arthur. Don't you think? You...you're a Rodney." He leaned away from the beast and peered at it, eyebrows furrowing in concentration. "Maybe a Roderick. Rod...something. Think we'll go with Rodney. Good name for a...whatever you are." He looked over his shoulder at the amoeba-creature. It came closer as they slowed their pace and made a wet splashing noise, flicking a series of pseudopods at their heels "You...you I could call...hmmm...." It made another liquid sound, like a wet sponge being squeezed. "Squish. Squish might suit you." It flicked a pseudopod at the back of the Time Lord's ankles, just above the tops of his trainers, and connected. The Doctor jumped ahead with a yelp, then scowled back at the creature. "I think I'll just call you Fang."

The newly-christened Fang lived up to his name, sending several more whip-like pseudopods snaking in the Doctor's direction.

"Whoops, let's hurry along, Rodney," the Doctor said, lengthening his stride to put some distance between them and their snappish herder. As they sped up, so did it, and in very short order the Doctor and his new friend Rodney were trotting, then loping, then running, in front of the thing. The Doctor was grinning hugely. "Love the running! You too, Rodney?" The Not-so-New creature ducked his head and gave a sullen snort, but made no other response.

Meanwhile, back in the tree, Donna had turned to Sarah and opened her mouth to say something when the Doctor and his alien companion and captor had started to leave the vicinity. Before she could make a sound, though, Sarah shot her a look, put a finger in front of her lips and shook her head. Donna frowned and shrugged her shoulders. Sarah put her index fingers behind her ears and pushed them forward. _It could have very good hearing_, she mimed soundlessly.

_What?_ Donna mimed back.

Sarah nodded toward the Doctor. _The..thing_, she mimed, outlining the shapeless shape of the amoeba-creature with her hands. Then she put a hand behind her ear again and tipped her head as if listening. _Don't want it to hear us_, she mimed.

Donna nodded reluctantly, and went back to watching the Doctor. As his tall, slim figure started to recede into the distance, she turned to Sarah again. "We don't want to lose him," she hissed.

"We won't," Sarah whispered back.

"We will if we stay up here much longer," Donna said in her normal voice.

Sarah shushed her with a worried look, then turned to watch the Doctor as he broke into a run. She had to smile at the sight. No one ran as joyously as this incarnation of her Time Lord. His long legs ate up the ground and the wind whipped his spikey hair into a tangle. Even at this distance, she could see the smile on his face. Or maybe she just felt the smile, his delight in the running, and her mind supplied the image from memory.

She carefully slid down the branch she was lying on to where it met the trunk of the tree, let her legs fall off to one side, dangled for a minute, then dropped, bending her knees on landing to absorb the shock. "Come on," she said, and Donna let her legs slide off her branch and hung by her arms. Sarah wrapped her arms around Donna's legs. "I've got you. Let go." They didn't quite go crashing to the ground together, but it was a near thing. As they dusted themselves down, brushing off bits of bark and foliage and getting their ruined frocks back in a semblance of order, Donna peered in the direction the Doctor had gone.

"Can't see him at all from down here," she said, voice sharp with worry.

"Don't worry about it. I can find him," Sarah said.

"How?"

Sarah stared off in the direction the Time Lord had gone. "I just.. feel him."

Donna looked at her with great curiosity. "All the time?"

Sarah thought about that for a second. She put a hand on her collarbone, rubbed gently. "Pretty much," she said. "Moreso when I try, of course."

The two women started off in the direction the Time Lord and the creatures had gone. "And when I punched him in the arm, back at the party, you felt it?" Donna asked.

Sarah just nodded.

"And when that thing just smacked him in the butt?"

Sarah sucked air through her teeth and reached around to rub the sore spot on her bum. "Oh yeah. I felt that."


	12. Chapter 12

The Doctor ran. He dodged boulders and ducked under low-hanging tree branches without breaking stride, leaping scraggly shrubs like an Olympic hurdler. Gradually he noticed a path taking shape beneath his trainers, a path apparently worn bare by the pounding of many feet. Or hooves. Or pseudopods. Or a combination thereof. He felt more than saw the slight uphill rise when it began, forcing his muscles to work just that bit harder and deepening his breathing. Then they reached the crest of the slope, crossed it and started downhill.

Rodney, who had been running rather reluctantly beside and slightly behind the Doctor, suddenly gave a snort and picked up the pace. The Doctor lengthened his strides but even he couldn't keep up with a four-legged creature built like an antelope. Rodney was soon pulling him along, his hosiery leash taut, shaking his head and whickering at the unwonted tug of the bow-tie collar.

"Aha!" the Doctor shouted gleefully, as he gulped air, pumped his legs, and hung on to the leash for all he was worth. And he, Rodney and Fang went haring down the slope toward the first sign of intelligent life he'd seen since they'd arrived on the planet.

It was a campsite of sorts, with a makeshift corral full of creatures like the not-so-new and a row of individual cages of varying sizes standing off to one side. The not-so-new milled and bleated in reaction to the rapid approach of the Doctor and Rodney, and the blobby creature that had kept at their heels throughout their run put on a sudden and amazing burst of speed to circle around in front of them and place itself between them and the herd.

The Doctor and Rodney slammed on the brakes, sliding to a halt six feet in front of the fence containing the creatures, Fang blobbing in front of them, whip-like tendrils flailing a warning. Rodney pranced nervously, pawing the ground with his delicate hooves, making small feints to one side and then the other as if to try to get around their herder, only to lose courage as a tendril snaked out in his direction.

The Doctor stood, doubled-over, breathing heavily, hands on hips, elbows out, head hanging but his eyes never leaving Fang. "That was a good leg-stretcher," he said between puffs. "Now what?"

As if in answer, a second amoeba-like creature, three times the size of Fang, slid toward them from around the corral.

"Ah," the Doctor said, brightening. "So, Fang, you're just a little tyke. This must be the..."

He broke off, his mouth hanging open and his eyebrows up, as Fang took a flying leap toward the larger creature and, with a liquid plop, was absorbed into it. The new creature was now four times the size Fang had been, and, as the Doctor watched, a second one of the same size oozed around the corral from the other side.

"That was...remarkable," the Doctor said, wonderingly. "Well. Now," he said, straightening up. "I'm the Doctor. Pleased to meet you." He held out a hand toward the closer creature, albeit a bit more cautiously than he usually did when greeting new life forms.

The giant amoebas both threw out long, narrow pseudopods, which wrapped around a gate in the corral fence and pulled it open. New tendrils grew instantly as the creatures in the pen milled toward the opening. Rodney gave a blat and leaped through the gate, taking the Doctor by surprise and nearly pulling his arm from its socket as his leash was still wrapped firmly around the Time Lord's hand. The gate crashed shut behind them.

"Oi!" the Doctor cried. "Easy, Rodney." He scrambled to keep his feet under him and to catch up with the not-so-new, but Rodney was on a mission and dragged him further into the milling mass of mossy-furred beasts. "Let me get this tie off you before..." He went hand-over-hand up the leash and reached for the collar, his long, dextrous fingers moving quickly to untie it now that they had obviously reached their destination. But before he could get the tight knot undone, he felt something clamp itself around his slim waist and lift him off the ground.

"Oyah!" the Doctor shouted in surprise. He turned and saw that one of the amoeba creatures had shot out a thick tendril which was now wrapped around his midsection. "Ooof!" he grunted as the pseudopod grew longer, wrapping itself around him and clamping down on him like a boa constrictor, squeezing the air out of his lungs. "Put me down!" He reached into his pocket, which was fortunately just above the tendril, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "I'm not asking you again," he said, eyebrows lowering as he chose a setting that he hoped would vibrate the gelatinous insides of the amoeba-thing enough to make it let go without doing it any harm.

The blue beam of the sonic shot out, and the Doctor felt the vibrations course through the creature that had him in its grip. But instead of letting go, it increased the length of the pseudopod that held him and wrapped it across his chest, then around his shoulder, then up his arm toward his hand, the hand holding the sonic.

"Blimey, how do you do that with no muscles?" the Doctor gasped. He quickly adjusted the sonic to a higher setting, aimed and fired.

"Aaah!" he cried as the tendril tightened again, around more and more of his body, snaking ever further up his long arm toward the sonic. He blinked rapidly and struggled for breath, trying to reach the sonic with his left hand to ratchet its frequency up another notch. But the creature's pseudopod was now wrapped around his arm, forcing it straight out and up. He couldn't bend his elbow at all. As he reached up toward the sonic with his left hand, a secondary tendril sprouted from the thick one that encircled his torso and grabbed his wrist, then shrank back, pulling his hand with it. The Doctor tried desperately to adjust the sonic one-handed, kicking and wriggling ineffectually. The tendril grew and snaked up and around his forearm, heading toward his wrist. He thumbed the sonic's control switch and gripped it until his knuckles whitened as the tendril reached his hand.

A sharp crack echoed across the compound. "No!" the Doctor wailed.

* * * *

Sarah and Donna followed after the Doctor as quickly as they could. When they reached the point where it became obvious that a path had been worn in the ground, Donna glanced up at Sarah questioningly. Sarah gently rubbed the spot just above her sternum, focussed her mind on the Doctor, then looked at Donna and nodded. They followed the path, slowing as their tired muscles felt the grade.

"Whew, I'm puffed," Donna gasped as they reached the crest of the ridge. "Amazing how..."

"Shh." Sarah crouched low, and pulled Donna down beside her. She nodded toward the scene in front of them.

They were still quite a distance away, but their vantage point on the hillside allowed them to see everything playing out below them--the herd of not-so-new milling in its corral, the two giant amoebas on the outside of the fence, the Doctor being dragged into the middle of the herd by the creature they had caught. They saw the snake-like tendril shoot out and wrap itself around the Doctor's waist, saw it lift him off the ground like a child playing with an action figure. A blue flash told them the Doctor was fighting back, and Sarah gripped Donna's arm tightly as she willed the creature to let her Time Lord go unharmed. Instead, more coils wrapped themselves around his slim body. He was obviously struggling with all of his considerable strength, but to no avail. Another blue flash and the tendrils coiled up his right arm and pulled his left tightly against his body, until he looked like a grotesque parody of the Statue of Liberty, his sonic-screwdriver torch held aloft.

His stiff, raised arm suddenly went limp. Half a second later, the crack of something breaking, dimmed by distance but unmistakeable, reached their ears.

"Oh, God," Donna moaned, clutching Sarah's shoulder. "It broke his arm."

"No," Sarah gasped. She put a hand on her chest and struggled for breath.

Donna looked over at her. "You saw it. Heard it."

Sarah shook her head and forced air into her lungs. "Didn't feel it. He's okay." She didn't have the breath to say any more.

Donna stared at her blankly for a second, mouth open, then looked back at the distant tableau. The Doctor now hung limply in the coils of the giant amoeba, which was lifting him out of the corral and away from the herd of not-so-new. She turned back to Sarah.

"Then what broke?"

Sarah felt her breathing ease as she watched the amoeba creature ooze along a row of cages, open one with a snaky tendril, deposit the Doctor's body inside, then close the door. "I think it was his screwdriver," she said. She turned to see Donna giving her a horrified look.

"I think he'd rather it was his arm," Donna said.

Sarah laughed, in spite of everything. This woman _did _know him. "I think you're right," she agreed.

After a minute, Sarah started down the slope at an oblique angle to the route the Doctor, Rodney and Fang had taken. She crouched low and moved quickly from one bit of cover to the next, hunkering down behind shrubs, belly-crawling through areas of sparse vegetation, hiding behind tree trunks. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Donna, standing tall and sauntering along behind her, arms folded, watching her with a bemused expression.

"Get down," Sarah hissed.

"Why?"

"So they won't see us," Sarah replied, eyebrows raised, trying hard to keep the "Duh!" out of her voice.

Donna stopped, planted her feet, gazed down at the encampment, and frowned. "They don't have eyes."

"They might," Sarah responded. She looked down at the amoeba-like creatures and frowned. "Somewhere," she added.

"They're just big blobs. They don't have anything but...blobbiness."

Sarah sighed. "They knew where the Doctor was."

Donna thought about that for a secod and then reluctantly hunkered down next to Sarah. "Maybe they heard him."

Sarah nodded agreement. "Could be. Or maybe they navigate by smell. In which case we're as good as caught. But just in case, let's try to stay quiet and out of sight as long as we can."

They crept along in single file, Donna following Sarah's lead although her attempts at stealth were still a bit more haphazard and less successful than the journalist's. Slowly they traversed the downhill slope, circling around the encampment until the row of cages was between them and the corral. Sarah stopped for a recce when they were still several hundred yards away from the cages and Donna crouched next to her.

"Now what?" Donna asked. "Wait till it's dark...." Sarah raised her eyebrows and gave her a sideways look. "Oh. Right. Well, wait until it's dim..." She trailed off and was silent for a second. "And then what?"

"We rescue him," Sarah said firmly, compressing her lips with determination.

Donna nodded solemnly. "Good plan." She stared at the row of cages for a minute, then turned to Sarah. "How?"

Sarah's determined look dissolved. "Haven't quite worked that out yet." She looked at Donna. "Any ideas?"

Donna plopped backwards from her crouch into a sitting position, crossing her legs, propping her elbows on her knees and resting her chin in her hands. Both women stared at the encampment in silence for long minutes.

"There's always the just-creep-up-quietly-and-open-the-door-and-hope-they-don't-notice approach," Donna said finally.

"Mmm," Sarah murmured. "Problem is, the door to the cage is on the other side. The side toward them."

"Mmm," Donna echoed her thoughtfully. "That would make it a bit harder not to be noticed."

Sarah nodded, and they both thought some more.

"Maybe we could stay on this side and cut the bars of the cage and get him out that way." Donna shaded her eyes with her hand and peered at the cages intently. "Can you tell what the bars are made of?"

Sarah also peered at the cages for a moment. "Not a clue." She looked over at her companion. "You have a saw on you?"

"Hmm, let me see." Donna made a great show of checking her non-existent pockets. "No, I seem to have left it in my other ball gown."

"Mmm." Sarah sat back on her haunches and tried to think. What would the Doctor do if their positions were reversed?

"Stampede!" Donna blurted. Sarah looked over at her questioningly. The other woman's face was shining with excitement.

"Beg pardon?"

"Stampede," Donna said again. When Sarah continued to look at her blankly, she went on. "You know. Like in the old westerns. Frighten the herd, they stampede, the cowboys are all busy for hours rounding them up again."

Sarah pooched out her lower lip thoughtfully, then nodded slowly. "What scares these things?"

"Dunno," Donna said, losing some of her enthusiasm. Then she perked up again. "The one we caught was pretty flighty. Didn't seem like it would take much to send it into a tizz."

"So, we run down there, waving our arms and shouting."

"Yeah. Yeah!" Donna's eyes sparkled.

"And the blob-things wrap a tentacle around us..."

Donna stared at her. "Nooo," she finally said, shaking her head.

"Why not?"

Donna looked back at the cages. "Because....." she said, drawing out the word. Then she stopped. "This is so much easier when he's around."

Sarah laughed in spite of herself. "True."

"I know!" The excitement was back in Donna's face. "Fire!"

"Fire?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, that's how we stampede the herd. Without getting close to the blobby things. We start a brush fire."

Sarah just stared at her for a minute. "Got a match?" she finally asked.

Donna's face crumpled. "Left 'em with my saw," she admitted. She wrinkled her nose and scratched the side of her head. "Weren't you a Girl Guide? Can't you start a fire by rubbing two sticks together?"

Sarah just looked at her.

"Apparently not."

Sarah shook her head. "Besides. How would we control it? We don't want to roast the Doctor. Or ourselves, for that matter." She looked at the vegetation growing around them and ran her hand through it experimentally. It was tough-skinned and rubbery, much like the giant grass blades they had hiked through for so long. "We don't even know if this stuff would burn."

Donna gave a deflated sigh and went back to staring at the encampment.

"What would he do?" Sarah said softly, as much to herself as Donna.

Donna laughed. "Him? He'd waltz right in as if he owned the place and say, 'Hullo, I'm the Doctor. I believe you have a friend of mine locked in a cage. Would you be so kind as to let her go?'"

Sarah grinned at the other woman's spot-on imitation of the Time Lord. Then she sobered. "That's exactly what he'd do." She looked at Donna appraisingly.

Donna returned her gaze for a second, then shook her head. "Oh no. We couldn't get away with it. I don't know how he does half the time."

Sarah's eyes danced encouragement. "You just did an outstanding impression of him."

Donna's mouth fell open and she shook her head again. "Still and all..."

Sarah scooted around to face Donna. "And we don't have to pull it off the way he does. Because there are two of us. One can distract the things by doing our best Doctor impression, while the other sneaks around behind and frees him. Then we've got him to help."

Donna still looked dubious.

"We can draw straws for who does decoy duty and who does the sneaking around," Sarah offered.

Donna looked at her unhappily. "No," she finally said. "You're better at the sneaking around. I'd better be the decoy."

Sarah took a deep breath and gauged the distances that they would both have to go. "Right," she said. "Stay low and out of sight as best you can until you get round the other side of the camp. I'll work my way closer to the cages. Then when you have their attention, I'll get the Doctor out." She raised her eyebrows and held out a hand to the other woman.

Donna looked at the proferred hand for a second, then took it and shook it firmly. Without another word, they split up and headed toward their respective assigments.

"Donna," Sarah hissed before the other woman could get out of earshot.

"What?"

"If anything goes wrong, don't forget plan B.'

Donna's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. "What's Plan B then?"

"Run," Sarah said.


	13. Chapter 13

Donna stood up. She took a moment to dust herself down, brushing off the dirt and bits of vegetation that she'd accumulated on her stealthy creep around the other side of the compound. Then she straightened her spine and took a deep breath. "Oi! You there!" she called with an emphatic upwards nod. She jumped up and down, waving her arms above her head. "Up here!"

_Sarah Jane, I hope you've had time to get where you need to go_, she thought as the two big amoeba creatures did a sort of blobby double-take and oozed in her direction, away from the cages. She fought down a wave of panic and plastered a big, toothy, Doctorish grin on her face.

With a sudden _splelch! _noise, the two creatures each divided into four smaller blobs.

"Oi!" Donna said, eyes huge, her pasted-on grin turning to a scowl. "What are you lot up to?"

Two of the creatures continued to head her way, now at speed, while four circled the herd and two ranged up and down the row of cages.

"No, no, no!" Donna cried. "You're all supposed to come after me!"

By this time the two that _were _coming after her had arrived and begun to circle her, slowly coming closer with each go-round.

Donna drew herself up to her full height, blew out a breath, and put the grin on again. "Hullo, I'm Donna," she said in her best Doctorish tones. She held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you."

One of the amoeba creatures shot out a pseudopod in her direction. Donna tried to grasp it, as if it were a hand offered in response to her gesture, but it whipped right by her outstretched arm and wrapped around her waist.

"Oi!" she shouted, slapping at it. "Tentacles!" In response, it snaked around her again. "Get off!" she hollered, slapping frantically at the offending alien protuberance, all pretence of Doctorishness gone.

The thing lifted her off the ground and started oozing back toward the herd and the line of cages with her suspended in front of it like a rag doll.

"Put me down!" she shouted, kicking at the thing. Her foot connected with a squelch. "Ew!" she moaned as it penetrated the membrane that surrounded the creature and sank into its gelatinous interiour. A foul smell enveloped her. "Oh, you are nasty!" she said, wrinkling her nose, but its only response was to lengthen the pseudopod carrying her to a point where her feet could no longer connect with its body. Her foot came out of the creature with a gloopy _spluck _and the membrane immediately closed over the hole she'd made.

It ferried her, struggling and shouting, toward the row of cages. It stopped in front of one, snaked out a pseudopod to lift the latch, opened the door and, none-too-gently, thrust her inside. The tentacle around her unwound itself, closed and latched the door and was resorbed into the main beast in a flash. Donna staggered for a second, then caught herself on the bars. "You bloody...." she gasped, trying to get air back into her lungs. "You never..." she sputtered again. "If I ever...." She stopped and stood, shoulders heaving with outrage, catching her breath. The blob oozed away, apparently unimpressed.

She turned and saw the Doctor, sitting on the floor on the far side of the cage, knees up, his back against the bars, arms folded over his chest, brown eyes watching her.

"Hullo," he said mildly.

She just nodded, still short of breath. "We...erm...came to rescue you," she puffed out after a moment.

He nodded thoughtfully. "And how's that going?" he asked.

She drew in a deep breath, then blew it out. "Could be better," she admitted.

He compressed his lips and nodded again. "You okay?" he asked after a moment's silence.

She pressed a hand to her rib cage where the creature had squeezed her. "Seem to be. You?"

"Fine," he said. "Sarah?"

"Ah," Donna said. She pulled a face. "She's...erm...out there. Somewhere. " She looked out the back side of the cage toward the slope where she and Sarah had sat and made their plans. "The other part of the rescue."

He nodded. "Sarah?" He was looking at Donna when he said it, but this time it wasn't a question so much as a call. "Sarah," he repeated firmly when he didn't get a response.

"Erm. Yes?" The top of Sarah's head popped up between the bars on the far side of the cage, her eyes just above the level of the floor.

The Doctor looked over at her without turning his head, his lips twitching, fighting a grin. "How's that rescue going?"

"Working on it," she said quietly, but with a slight edge in her voice.

"Why don't you just come in before they find you and you get squeezed too?" This time, the Doctor turned to look at her and broke into a broad grin at the sight of her wide green eyes peering up at him. "It's not a lot of fun. Is it, Donna?"

Donna shook her head. "No," she agreed.

"But...but..." Sarah protested.

"Come on," the Time Lord said gently, nodding toward the door.

With a soft _humph_, Sarah dropped below the level of the floor of the cage. A minute later, she reappeared on the other side. The Doctor levered himself up off the floor, reached a long arm through the bars, unlatched the door and held it open for her.

"What the..." Donna sputtered.

"Shhh," the Doctor said, holding a finger in front of his lips. Then he reached both hands out and down to Sarah. She took them and, with an effortless lift from his wiry muscles, was hoisted up into the cage.

Sarah dusted herself down, brushing off the dirt and debris she'd acquired creeping up on the campsite and under the cage, while the Doctor closed and relatched the door behind her. Donna stared from the door to the Doctor and back to the door. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out. All she could do was shake her head.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"I think Donna's trying to ask why you're still in here if the door's not locked," Sarah said dryly.

Donna nodded vigourously, touched the tip of her nose and pointed at Sarah.

"Oh. That." The Time Lord arched one eyebrow at his speechless companion, then glanced around the inside of the cage. It was about ten feet long by six wide. The sides were barred, the ends solid, and the floor was strewn with a relatively cushy-looking local equivalent of Earth straw. "Where would I go?" He leaned against one of the end walls and slid down until his bum was on the floor, wrists resting loosely on raised knees. "These creatures are the first sign of intelligent life we've found. Seemed like a better idea to stick with them than to go back to hiking aimlessly through unknown territory."

"You have a point there," said Sarah, stepping over to the end wall and sliding down to sit next to him. "As long as we aren't on the menu."

The Time Lord grinned at her. "Have you been reading _The Silver Chair_ again?"

She returned his grin, but a bit more wryly. "No, _Gulliver's Travels_."

His grin broadened. "Humans have such an irrational horror of being what's for dinner."

Sarah opened her mouth to respond when he quickly shushed her and turned to look out the side of the cage that faced the main campsite. Following his gaze she saw four of the smaller amoeba creatures ooze up in front of them. She blinked as they all took a flying leap at each other and coalesced into one large blob. "Neat trick, that," she said in wonder.

"Shh!" the Time Lord said urgently, staring intently at their captor.

A series of liquid splashes, drips and sploops came from the creature. The Doctor chuckled.

"It thinks we're reproducing," he said.

"We're what?" Donna said, scornful and appalled.

"Well, it knows it only put two of us in here but now there are three. What would you think?"

Sarah and Donna exchanged baffled glances. "How do you know?"

"It just said so." He tipped his head from side to side. "I think. More or less. I'm pretty sure that's the gist anyway. Haven't had time to learn much of their language yet."

"I thought you spoke all languages," Donna reminded him.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, well. Apparently not quite all." Then his teeth flashed in an delighted grin. "Brilliant, isn't it? A language I don't know! I love learning new languages."

Sarah was trying to get her head around the fact that these faceless, shapeless blobs of protoplasm were verbal. "So, those noises it made--that's a language?"

The Doctor nodded. "I'm catching on to some of the vocabulary and syntax. But I haven't had much luck reproducing the sounds. Time Lord vocal chords aren't really adapted to creating the phonemes they use. Watch." He pursed his lips and sucked in his cheeks, doing a marvelous impression of a fish, then brought his lips together quickly and released them with a liquid popping sound. His tongue, lips and cheeks contorted as he continued making a series of various wet noises. Finally, he paused and watched the amoeba-creature for a reaction.

It made a loud splashing sound that rose and fell in tone and intensity as if someone were playing with the taps. The Doctor sighed. "It's laughing at me."

Sarah snorted a laugh of her own. "Can hardly blame it."

"Now what's it doing?" Donna asked.

They all watched as the amoeba creature snaked a tentacle through the bars, dropping something on the floor of their cage. The Doctor got up and cautiously approached the item. He prodded it with a finger, then picked it up and turned it over in his hands, frowning slightly in concentration as he studied it. Their captor blurped and droozled, then extruded another tendril and dropped something else in the cage. The Doctor picked it up and examined it intently as well, crouching over the mystery items.

"What are they?" Sarah asked, coming up behind him, resting a hand on his back and peering over his shoulder.

"Not sure," he said. "Appear to be botanical in origin..."

Before he could say anything else, the creature dropped another item in the cage with them. This one they all recognized--one of the screaming pear-like fruits.

The Doctor gave a short laugh as the penny dropped. "It's feeding us."

"You sure it's not poisoning us?" Donna asked, eyeing the creature and the fruit skeptically.

Before the Doctor could answer, the creature plopped another offering on the cage floor, this time a squirrel-sized and obviously very dead animal.

Donna skittered away until her back hit the bars on the far side of the cage. "Blimey," she moaned.

"Well, it doesn't know what we eat," the Doctor said. "So it's offering a variety. It's probably never seen anything like us before."

Sarah sighed, and the Doctor glanced over at her with a questioning look. "Means no humanoids on this planet," she said in explanation. "Right?"

He nodded. "Probably. But that's not too surprising, is it?"

She shook her head sadly.

"I'm not eating raw dead alien...thingummy," Donna said, emphatically.

"Well," Sarah said slowly. "Maybe if we cooked it..."

Donna shot her a look. "And how do you propose to prepare it, Miss Delia Jane Smith?"

Sarah looked at the Doctor. "The sonic? You said it could warm us up like a microwave warms up dinner."

The Doctor threw her the saddest of sad puppy dog looks, and his lips twisted unhappily.

"Oh." Sarah felt a wave of distress coming from him. "Is it...?"

He hung his head and looked away.

Sarah and Donna exchanged looks, remembering the sharp snap they had heard as they watched the amoeba creature take the Doctor prisoner.

"Knackered, eh?" Donna asked.

He nodded.

Sarah wrapped an arm around him and gave him a consoling squeeze. "We were afraid it was your arm. Thank goodness it was just the sonic."

He looked at her in disbelief. "Just?"

She laughed softly, an affectionate, sympathetic laugh, and stroked his upper arm gently.

"So how are we going to know if any of this is safe to eat, without the sonic to analyze it?" Donna asked, coming closer and peering at the items the Doctor was holding with a mixture of doubt and hope.

"The old fashioned way," the Doctor answered morosely.

"Which is?"

In answer, the Doctor shot her a dark look, then raised the item in his left hand to his nose and gave it a careful and thorough sniffing, followed by an experimental lick. He wrinkled his nose doubtfully, then dug a small sample out with a fingernail and put it in his mouth. It came back out much more quickly than it went in as he spat it through the bars with a look of utter disgust.

"That's a no then," Donna commented, earning herself another sidelong look.

The Doctor tossed the remainder of the offending fruit-or-veg-or-whatever through the bars. He gingerly picked up the dead creature by one of its six legs and chucked it out as well. Then he started his sniff-lick-taste analysis on the next item.

Sarah watched him with a worried frown. "Don't make yourself sick."

"Better me than you," he said. "I'll get over it faster," he continued when she raised her eyebrows.

The amoeba-creatures appeared to take note of what they ate and what they discarded, as they provided more of what they found edible and stopped offering the rejected items. They also shoved long thin gourds full of water through the bars, which the Time Lord taste-tested and pronounced safe. Eventually, the three travellers sat back against the walls of their cage, their physical hunger satisfied.

Their captors glooped away after their offerings of food and water starting going unconsumed. Sarah, Donna and the Doctor watched them with curiosity as they ranged up and down the other cages, then circled the herd of not-so-new a few times, then settled in a spot halfway between their cage and the herd. Before long, the creatures started dividing into smaller blobby units, which then would sproing together and rejoin into their larger versions, only to divide up again moments later. The exercise was accompanied by a variety of liquid sounds, which the Doctor listened to intently, cocking his head from time to time.

"Why are they doing that?" Donna finally asked after the creatures had gone through the process of dividing and rejoining a number of times.

The Doctor shrugged. "They seem to enjoy it," he mused, rubbing the side of his face thoughtfully.

"To each his own," Sarah said. "Doesn't look like much fun to me." She sat on the floor of the cage and leaned back against one of the solid ends. "And I'm nearly too tired to care." The novelty of a full stomach, no hiking to do, and the softness of the cushiony vegetation that covered the cage floor all were making her eyelids droop.

The Doctor looked down at her with a small worried frown which was quickly replaced by a warm smile. He stepped over to the end of the cage, folded his long legs and slid down the wall to sit next to her. Sarah leaned against him, burrowing contentedly into his side and letting her eyes close.

"Don't amoebas on Earth reproduce by dividing like that?" Donna asked, still studying their captors' antics with a puzzled frown.

"Mmm-hmm," the Doctor agreed softly.

"But this lot isn't reproducing. They don't end up with more of themselves. They just keep dividing and then going back together. What's the point?"

The Doctor pulled a "meh" face. "You humans seem to enjoy going through the motions of reproduction even when it doesn't end up increasing the population. What's the point of that?"

Sarah opened her eyes and gave him a surprised look. He turned his face toward her with a slight smile and gave her a very subtle wink, then turned back to Donna with a look of wide-eyed innocence.

That lady pulled her eyes away from the sight of the alien creatures' cavorting and stared at the Time Lord. "You mean...They're having....they're...." She shook her head. "Nooo. They're never.... Naaaah!"

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and pulled that 'meh' face again. "Yeah, I think they are," he said mildly.

"Oi! And I've been watching!" Donna quickly turned her back to the side of the cage she'd been looking out of, folded her arms over her chest, and gave a shudder. "Blimey!" Her cheeks flushed and she glared at the other two as they dissolved in helpless laughter.


	14. Chapter 14

It felt good to laugh. Even Donna joined in after a second. They hadn't had much to laugh about since they'd been dropped onto this world with nothing but their wits to help them survive. Now, they'd found intelligent life of a sort, they were being fed and watered and bedded down safely and comfortably, and their relief bubbled up and out in the form of laughter.

The aliens ceased their gymnastics and blobbed over to the side of the cage, where they made gloopy dribbling noises which sent the three travellers into further paroxysms of amusement. "They think we're having a fit," the Doctor said, wiping tears from his eyes. "At least, I think that's what they said."

"Maybe we should try to laugh like them. Where's that water jug?" Donna asked.

"No, no, don't waste the water. Let me try." The Doctor proceeded to do his best to mimic the splashing noises that he had interpreted as the blobs' laughter. The only immediate result was that Donna and Sarah doubled over with renewed mirth, holding their sides and gasping for breath.

"Stop. I can't take any more," Sarah wheezed, falling back against the end wall of the cage and pressing her hands to her sore ribs. Gradually, with the occasional outburst of giggles, they calmed down and caught their breath. The amoeba creatures sat outside their cage as they settled, then oozed away.

The Doctor slid down the wall of the cage and sat next to Sarah. "We're going to get out of this," he said, looking deeply into her eyes. He turned his intense gaze to Donna. "We really are."

"I know we are," Sarah said.

"Never doubted it for a minute," Donna said.

"Never doubted you," Sarah said softly, looking up at the Time Lord and twining her fingers through his.

"You..." the Time Lord said, giving her an appraising glance. She raised her eyebrows and waited. "...look exhausted. Lie down." He patted the cushiony bedding next to his side in invitation. "Donna? You'd better get some rest, too, while we have the chance."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Donna said, lying down across from them and pillowing her head on her arm.

"Nor me," Sarah said. She slid down the wall until she was stretched out full length across the end of the cage. Before she could settle in to the bedding, the Doctor scooched over just a bit so her head was pillowed on his thigh. She looked up at him, surprised, but then smiled, snuggled down, and closed her eyes. The Doctor rested a hand on her shoulder and leaned back against the wall. He closed his eyes and let himself relax into the silence in the cage.

He felt Sarah drop off into dreamless sleep almost immediately and looked down at her with a smile of infinite tenderness. He gently shifted his hand from her shoulder and stroked her hair.

"Why didn't you tell me about her?"

He looked up, startled by the soft question, and saw Donna's green eyes watching him. He quickly folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them. "Took you to meet her," he muttered, sounding defensive. "How is that not telling you about her?"

"I mean before. When I was busy making a fool of myself going on about not wanting to mate with you." One corner of her mouth quirked up at the memory. "All those times I told people we weren't a couple."

"We're not."

"I know. But...I thought you were still...well...I thought it was Rose..." She stopped herself in mid-sentence.. "I didn't know you had someone," she finally added.

The Doctor's eyebrows contracted in a thoughtful frown. "Would it have changed anything?"

"Oh. I don't know. Just..." She studied him intently in the violet light, his disheveled hair, those deep brown eyes that could break your heart with a glance or ice over and hide everything he was feeling. "No. Not really. But...yeah. Maybe. Would have been nice to know."

He looked down at Sarah and went back to softly stroking her hair. Silence filled the cage for long moments. When the Doctor finally spoke, his voice was low and so soft she had to strain to hear him. "There wouldn't have been a Rose. If there hadn't been a Sarah," he said. "She was...the first."

Donna waited, watching him. "The first...what?" she finally asked. "First human you travelled with?"

He laughed. "Oh no. Not by a long shot." He glanced up and saw Donna's eyes fixed on him expectantly, then looked back down at Sarah. "My first human best friend," he said softly. "The one who taught me I could...care...deeply...for an alien."

"An alien?" Donna said, startled. "But she's....oh. Right."

The Doctor smiled up at her as the penny dropped. Then he sobered. "My people were deeply xenophobic. Didn't approve of contact with other species at all. Much less...fraternization."

"Really." It was more a statement than a question, but he nodded. "Why?"

He snorted softly. "Why do humans not want to associate with house flies?"

Donna blinked at him a few times and swallowed before answering. "Seriously. That's what they thought of us?"

He nodded, his lips compressed. "Don't take it personally. It wasn't just humans."

"Why, the arrogant..." She bit off the rest of her comment. "Sorry."

"No, you're right. They were."

"So. How did you....why don't you feel that way?" She paused. "You don't, do you?"

He laughed softly. "No. I don't." He looked down at Sarah. "I think your lives are unbearably short. But that's not your fault." His expression grew grim. "Or maybe your lives are just right. And it's Time Lords that live too long."

Donna let the silence claim that statement as she mulled over what she'd managed to pry out of him. "What happened?" she finally asked.

"Hmm?"

"With you and Sarah."

"When?"

"When you broke up."

"We didn't...break up," he said, sounding defensive again.

"Well, you weren't together when you met Rose, were you?"

The Doctor kept his eyes downcast. "No." He played with a stray lock of Sarah's hair, curling it around his finger. "I hadn't seen Sarah for a long time when I met Rose."

"Why not?"

He sighed deeply, straightened up and fixed Donna with a direct look. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and shook his head. "So many reasons," he finally said.

Donna rolled her eyes, pointedly taking in the confines of their cage. "We seem to have time."

"You should be getting some sleep."

She grinned at him. "I love a good bedtime story."

"Humph," he harrumphed.

"One reason," she said, holding up an index finger.

"I was called home. To Gallifrey. Obviously I couldn't take her there."

"She could have stayed in the TARDIS."

"They'd have known."

"OK, so you left her on earth."

He nodded.

"And you went right back to get her once you were done with your business on Gallifrey."

He compressed his lips and shook his head, not meeting her eyes.

"Why not?"

"I told you. Humans have such ridiculously short lives. And she'd already given up too much of hers to be with me. I couldn't let her lose any more of it. I wanted her to have a nice, happy, normal human life. Didn't want to take that away from her."

"Did you ask her how she felt about that?

His dark eyes bored into her but he didn't answer.

"No, you didn't," she answered for him. "You just decided what was best for her. Bit of that Time Lord arrogance showing there."

"I wanted to go back," he said softly. "So many times. I came that close." He held up his thumb and index finger, nearly touching. "So many times."

"But?"

He sighed. "But I wanted to wait. Until I was older. Then I could go back and dip into her life again and we would have aged the same amount. Relatively."

Donna scowled as she puzzled that out. "But you did go back."

"Well," he said, drawing the word out. "Yes and no. Not the way I'd planned, unfortunately."

"I've noticed that about your plans," she said dryly. He narrowed his eyes at her and she just grinned and went on. "So. How did you get back together?"

"Ran into her when I was travelling with Rose."

"Oooh," Donna said. "That must have been interesting."

The Doctor pulled a face. "It worked out," he said. "Eventually."

"I see that," she said, watching him play with Sarah's hair.

He glanced up at her. "Bedtime story over. Go to sleep."

"Why?" she asked drowsily. "You have a plan?"

"I always have a plan," he said firmly.

"Umm-hmm," she said, nodding. "What is it this time?"

"Rest. Eat. Recover. Work on learning the local language. And...see what these creatures have in mind for us."

"Umm-hmm," she said again, sounding drowsy this time. "And what do you think that might be?"

He sighed and leaned back against the wall of the cage. "Circus. Zoo. Laboratory. Assuming they have those things on this planet. But whatever it is, we all need to be fighting fit to be ready for it. Right?"

"Riiiight," she drawled as she slipped off to sleep.

*~*~*~*~*~

_Sarah was on a train. A very bumpy train. There must be something wrong with the tracks, she thought, bouncing in her seat, rocking from side to side, looking out the window and trying to peer ahead and behind. No luck. She scanned the car she was in. Empty. But then she heard a sound. Someone was coming in the door at the end of the car. "Hello?" she called. "Conductor? I think you should stop the train. There's something wrong."_

__

"There is nothing wrong," said a hideously familiar, raspy, gravelly voice. "Ticket, please."

"Davros!" Sarah cried as the half-Dalek, half-mummified-humanoid rolled up the aisle toward her, blue light flashing. "No!"

Then she wasn't in the train anymore. She was in a stage coach, straight out of a western movie, and it was bumping across the plains at top speed. She stuck her head out the window and looked up at the driver, who was cracking his whip and shouting encouragement to the horses pulling them. "Driver! Driver!" she called. He looked down, and she saw it was Harry, all in black, including a black kerchief tied around his neck and a black cowboy hat on his head. "Harry!" she cried, as a wave of relief washed over her. "What are you doing up there? Stop the coach, something's wrong!"

"Can't stop now, little lady," Harry said with a classic John Wayne drawl. "The James gang is hot on our heels." He pointed toward the rear of the coach with his whip, then went back to shouting at the horses.

Sarah turned to look where he had pointed. A fleet of Daleks were behind them, trundling along at top speed, which was about three miles per hour. "Harry!" Sarah called. "You can slow down. They'll never catch us!"

"That's what you think, ma'am," Harry said, cracking his whip over the backs of the horses.

Sarah turned to look at the Daleks again and this time, they were flying, catching up to them so fast her heart leaped into her throat.

_"Faster! Faster!" she shouted up at Harry. "Oh God. Horses can never outrun..." Her mouth dropped open as she saw what was pulling the stage coach. "But that's not a horse," she said. "It's..."_

"Aggedor!" She sat bolt upright, eyes flying open.

The Doctor was gripping one of the bars of the cage with one hand, his other arm firmly around her shoulders. He looked at her and laughed. "What about him?"

"He was..." Sarah gave a short laugh as she glanced around the cage, reorienting herself. "...pulling a stage coach in the old West."

"Ah. Of course he was." The Doctor gave her a mock-serious look, then grinned.

"And Harry was driving. And we were being chased by flying Daleks."

The Doctor blew out an appreciative breath. "Makes real life seem quite tame."

Real life still seemed to contain the racketing bumpy motion that had pervaded her dreams. "We're moving."

"Yup!" the Doctor said enthusiastically. "They broke camp and hitched up some of Rodney's friends to the cages and we hit the road a few hours ago."

"Can't believe you slept through it as long as you did," Donna said. She was sitting in the front part of the cage, hanging on to the bars and wedged into a corner to keep from being jostled as best she could.

"I'm a good sleeper," Sarah said with a grin. "Learned it travelling with him." She tipped her head toward the Doctor. "You take your chances to sleep where you find them."

Donna nodded. "Yeah, one thing I haven't had a problem with since I started touring the galaxy with him. Insomnia."

The Doctor just grinned.

*~ *~ *~

"Ready?" The Doctor's voice was barely a whisper, but both Sarah and Donna nodded. "Remember--not a sound till we're clear."

He slowly and carefully reached through the bars, lifted the latch and quietly opened the door to the cage. After a quick glance around, he lowered himself silently to the ground, then turned and lifted Sarah down, then Donna. He held a long finger to his lips as a reminder, then, gliding like a panther, slid around the end of the cage and headed away from the quiescent amoeba-creatures.

They had been travelling through three full sun-cycles. The creatures stopped for a brief rest each time the pink sun set and the blue sun rose, then for a long rest during the entire time the lavender sun was in the sky. After they had seen to their herd and absorbed some nutrients, they lay still for long periods, resting if not actually sleeping. When, on the third rise of the pink sun, the travellers had seen buildings covering the side of a hill in the distance, the Doctor had grinned hugely and announced it was time they gave up their chauffeur-driven limousine and went back to hoofing it.

"We'll have a much better chance of being recognized as sentient beings and getting help if we enter that city under our own steam, rather than carted in as prize specimens," he explained.

Neither Sarah nor Donna argued the point. "The sooner I get out of this cage, the happier I'll be," Donna muttered, and Sarah nodded her agreement. Cabin fever was nothing compared to cage fever. Sharing a ten by six enclosure with two other people, however much you enjoyed their company ordinarily, did get a bit wearing over time.

The women followed the Doctor now, treading carefully, as he led them away from the campsite and down the road toward the city. When he turned off the road into the surrounding trees, Sarah paused for a moment and gave him a questioning look. He held a finger to his lips again, then waved them to follow.

The forest grew denser and darker the farther into it they trekked. Small paths snaked through the undergrowth which helped them move more easily and quietly, but which raised the question in Sarah's mind as to what exactly had made those paths. Hearing small rustlings and occasional squeaks off trail did nothing to allay her fears.

"Whoa." It was more an exclamation of surprise than a command to halt, but Sarah didn't have much choice in the matter as she nearly crashed into the Doctor as he stopped abruptly.

"What?" she asked, keeping her voice as low as possible and peering around him.

"Erm...local resident," the Doctor said, leaning slightly to the side so she could get a good view.

It was about the size of a cocker spaniel but much rounder, covered with rainbow-colored spines and waddling along the trail at no great speed in front of them.

Donna pushed up from behind to see. "Looks like a porcupine," she said.

"Bit more colourful than ours, but yes--could be the same family," Sarah agreed.

The Doctor peered at the thing and slowly followed it down the trail. "Good defense mechanism, quills. Not surprising it would evolve on two planets independently."

Donna crossed her arms and looked down at the thing as the three of them slowly shuffled in its wake. "Not exactly a speed demon."

"No need to hurry when you're well protected," the Doctor responded.

"Well, we're not. Well protected, that is. And when those blobs find we've done a bunk, they'll be in a right hurry after us. Remember how fast they can go?"

The Doctor gave a short, exasperated sigh, then nodded. "Come on then. Be careful. Don't touch it." He picked up the pace and carefully approached the creature.

It stopped, turned and faced him. "Hullo, I'm the Doctor," he said. It stamped its feet and rattled its quills. "Yes, well, we just want to play through, so to speak," the Doctor continued. "Just sneak on by you, no trouble, then you can be on your way again."

The spiny creature stood its ground, and the Doctor held one hand out and back in front of Sarah. "Let me go first. It might be more intimidated if we all go at once." Without waiting for an answer, he started pushing through the vegetation at the edge of the path, working his way around the beast. It turned, keeping its front end toward him as he circled around it, but made no other move or sound.

"Right, it's harmless. Long as you keep your distance," he said as he reached the path again on the far side of the creature. "Sarah. You next."

Sarah started toward the creature, which quickly turned to face her and bristled.

"Just take it slow and easy and don't get too close."

Slow she could do. Easy was harder, as the vegetation the Doctor had so casually stepped through presented much more of a challenge to her. Fortunately, he had trodden it down a bit, so she was able to make her way around to join him without tripping and landing on the quilly beast.

"Well done," he said warmly, smiling down at her as she reached him on the far side of the path. Then he looked up at his other companion. "Donna? Come on."

Donna edged around the rainbow-coloured beast, staring at it with fascination the whole time. "Pretty thing," she commented as she reached Sarah and the Doctor. She leaned a bit closer to it. "All those colours."

"Careful!"

"Hmm?" she murmurred, still peering at the animal. "No danger. I'm not going to touch it. And they don't throw their quills. That's a myth."

"On Earth, it's a myth," the Doctor said, grasping her upper arms and turning her away from the creature. "Here, you don't know what....AAAAH!"

Sarah felt a shooting pain in her back and stared, horrified, at the Time Lord. His mouth was hanging open and he was reaching one long arm around behind his back. His dark eyes widened at what he felt there. "Help," he gasped in a very small voice, then lurched forward a few steps before crashing to his knees on the trail.


	15. Chapter 15

Sarah froze. She stared into the Time Lord's terrified eyes and tried to breathe, but her body wouldn't respond. _It's not me. It's him. It's not me. It's him. _Her mind chanted it fiercely, over and over like a mantra, but the message didn't get through to her muscles.

She fell to her knees in front of him and put a hand on each of his shoulders, preventing him from toppling forward.

"Oh my God," Donna cried as she looked at his back. She reached for one of the half-dozen rainbow-coloured quills that were sticking out of the back of the Doctor's tux jacket.

"Don't!" Sarah gasped sharply. Donna's hand froze. "Toxic." Sarah barely had the air to force the word out, but she managed to get the message across. The red-head pulled her hand back and knelt next to her.

"Wha...what do we do?" Donna was stammering with fear.

Sarah swallowed hard, licked dry lips, and stared at the Doctor in desperation. "Bypass?"

He shook his head, and she felt the effort he was making to force his paralyzed respiratory system to pull in air. _Keep me breathing. _His voice rang silently in her mind. _It will pass._

"Right," she said. She gritted her teeth determinedly, then put her hands on each side of his head, pulling it down to where their lips could meet. She fitted her mouth to his and tried desperately to breath air into his lungs.

_Not working._ Even his mental voice was sounding frazzled. She pulled away from him, gasping for breath. "Donna." It came out in a short, defeated huff. "I can't. You."

"Me?" Donna looked from her to the distressed Time Lord.

Sarah nodded vehemently. "Breathe for him." She grimaced and tried to pull air into her lungs. "Can't...do it."

Donna's eyebrows met in a worried frown. "Were you hit too?"

Sarah shook her head. "Just him." She shifted back and to the side to give Donna space. "It's..." She forced a quick, very shallow breath, waving her hand at the Doctor, then at herself. "...the bond. Can't breathe."

Donna stared at her for a second more, then turned to the Time Lord. "Right," she said, squaring her shoulders. "Didn't expect to do this again so soon." She took his face between her hands. "Or ever," she added. Then she molded her lips to his and breathed out. After a second, she pulled away and rocked back on her heels, staring at the Time Lord with a puzzled frown. "Blimey. It's like trying to breathe into a brick wall."

Sarah nodded. "Diaphragm. Paralyzed," she huffed out. "Try again."

Donna took a deep breath, then went in for another attempt, covering the Time Lord's mouth with her own and blowing fiercely, forcing his lungs to inflate.

"Good," Sarah said, feeling her own breathing loosen up a bit.

For what seemed like hours, the three knelt on the path, Donna pulling in great, gulping breaths and then blowing them into the Time Lord's lungs, Sarah looking on with a worried frown, trying to get enough air into her own lungs to keep from passing out.

Finally, the Doctor raised an arm and pushed Donna gently back. His hand rested on her shoulder while he took a series of ragged, shallow breaths, sounding like an exhausted runner at the end of a marathon. Gradually, his breathing regulated, became deeper and easier. He looked into Donna's eyes. "Thank you," he said, his voice thin and wheezy.

"You okay now?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Closer." He sank back on his haunches and worked at breathing.

"Could've used some ginger beer," Donna said. He gave a short, rueful laugh and nodded. "Maybe you should carry it with you at all times. And packets of walnuts and tins of anchovies."

"Wasn't so bad," he said, then closed his eyes and took a deep open-mouthed breath. "Metabolized it. Without detoxing." For the first time, he glanced at Sarah Jane, then quickly looked down and away.

Donna followed the Time Lord's eyes and saw Sarah, sat back cross-legged on the path, head down, arms wrapped around herself, obviously still struggling for breath, obviously miserable. She frowned slightly and looked back at the Doctor. He was breathing more easily, but dark bruised-looking circles had begun to form under his eyes in stark contrast to his ashen face. Oddest of all, he was still studiously looking away from Sarah.

Moving slowly and with none of his normal fluidity, he curled his arm behind his back and reached up until he found the first quill. With a determined grimace, he gave it a tug. He winced and Sarah arched her back and cried out. She raised her head and looked at him and he met her eyes for a long second. Then they both looked away, anywhere but at each other.

"Let me do that," Donna said. She shifted around behind him and gave his back an appraising look.

He leaned away from her. "Don't. Could still have toxin in them. Or on them. Enough to hurt you." His breathing was approximating normal now but he looked ready to drop, his usual manic energy entirely gone.

"Well, we've got to get them out. Can't have you walking around looking like some alien pincushion. You'd get an infection or something." She cast her eyes around the path and the forest floor for something she could use as a tool. "Not to mention it can't feel very good."

The Doctor closed his eyes and let his head fall forward. "Wrap your skirt around your hand."

"Right." She did as he said, then put a bracing hand on his shoulder and gingerly gripped one of the quills. "Slow or fast?" she asked.

"Fast," he answered, then arched his back and gasped as she suited her actions to his instructions.

Sarah had braced herself and clamped her lips together, but an involuntary scream of pain was wrenched from her anyway as Donna pulled the quill free. The Doctor looked over at her, then shook his head. He felt Donna grip the next quill. "Wait," he said over his shoulder, then turned back to Sarah.

"_Terza_, you have to block this."

"How?" She was on the verge of tears, mostly of frustration, partly of pain, and her voice came out as a miserable low squeak.

He shook his head again. "I don't know how to tell you. It's just...instinct."

"I don't seem to have that instinct."

"Obviously," he said, a muscle jumping in his cheek. He sighed deeply. "Come here."

She looked up at him, green eyes brimming with tears, then crept over to sit, curled into a ball of misery, in front of him.

He reached out and brushed her cheek lightly with his fingertips. "Feeling you feeling my pain is worse than the pain itself," he said softly.

"Sorry," she said without lifting her head.

"Let me see if I can help."

She felt his fingers on her temples, felt his mind probing hers. It was different from the way they shared consciousness through their bond. More clinical. Impersonal. Like a doctor's examination, going to the most intimate places but with no intimate intent.

After a moment, she felt a calmness wash through her. She opened her mind and welcomed it and immediately fell into a relaxation so deep that only the pressure of his fingers on her temples kept her upright.

"Now, Donna," he said quietly. Donna moved quickly, pulling the remaining quills out of his back one after the other, trying not to feel his muscles contracting and his body flinching against the pain.

"Done," she said as the last one came out. She held it in front of him. "Want it for a souvenir? Pretty thing."

He rolled his eyes at her. "No thanks." She shrugged and pulled her arm back to throw it into the woods. "Wait." His voice stopped her and she looked back at him. "That's not a bad idea, actually. Hang on, let me bring Sarah back."

"From where?" Donna asked, peering curiously at Sarah.

"From over the rainbow," he answered shortly, then focussed his full concentration on Sarah.

After a moment, she raised her head. His hands dropped away from her temples and she opened her eyes, staring blankly forward, unseeing. Then she blinked, took a deep breath, and looked at Donna. "They're out?" Donna nodded. Sarah turned and looked into the Time Lord's worried brown eyes. "You're okay?" He nodded. "No thanks to me," she added bitterly. "Thank you, Donna. For saving him."

"For saving us," he echoed.

Donna looked from one to the other. "You mean...you think...she..." She broke off to stare at Sarah. "How could that be?"

The Doctor shook his head, still looking deeply into Sarah's eyes. "I don't know. And I don't want to find out." He reached out and stroked her cheek tenderly. "I should never have bonded with you," he said softly, his voice thick with grief and regret. "I'm so sorry."

"Erm. You might want to put this breakup on hold for a bit," Donna said hesitantly. The Doctor threw her a dark look and she raised her eyebrows and tipped her head to the side, rolling her eyes up the path the way they had come. "Company."

The Doctor stiffly turned his head. "Wizard," he said, his voice dripping disgust.

Lolloping up the trail toward them were a handful of blobby creatures, two the size of sheepdogs actually on the path with a smattering of other smaller ones slithering through the undergrowth alongside the trail at amazing speed. The little ones zipped by the three travellers, then came out of the underbrush onto the path and coalesced into one, which waved a tendrily pseudopod at them threateningly.

The Doctor struggled to his feet with Donna's help, then reached a hand down to Sarah. She ignored it, getting up on her own and, arms folded and eyes downcast, started down the trail back the way they had come. The Doctor and Donna fell in behind her, and Fang or a Fang lookalike followed.

They trudged all the way back to the cage, which stood where they had left it, the door swinging open. Sarah hoisted herself up into it without giving the others a look. She went to the far side of the cage, dropped to the floor in the corner, wrapped her arms around herself and stared out between the bars at nothing.

The Doctor gave Donna a leg up, then climbed in himself. The amoeba creature closed and latched the door, then wrapped a tendril several times around and through the bars of the cage and the door. Once the door was thoroughly secured, the creature withdrew its gelatinous interior from the tendril, leaving the dry outer layer of it behind holding the door closed.

The Doctor sank to the floor in the corner diagonally opposite Sarah. He leaned back against the end wall of the cage, then quickly sat forward again with an involuntary grunt and a grimace.

"You okay?" Donna asked as she sat next to him.

He nodded, his eyes closed. "I'm fine," he answered through clenched teeth.

"Hmph." Sarah gave a very ladylike snort, but didn't take her eyes off the scenery outside the cage.

Donna looked over at her, then back at the Time Lord. "So. I take it you aren't fine."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, opened his mouth, glanced from Donna to Sarah, then shut his mouth again. "I can breathe," he finally said, then, with a last look at Sarah, turned to stare out the bars.

Donna looked from the Time Lord to Sarah and back again as a brittle silence fell in the little cage. "Blimey," she muttered. "I could have stayed home and had this drama with Nerys and her current man." She folded her arms over her bosom and glared at the Time Lord, a glare he missed entirely as he stared fixedly out at the alien landscape.

He couldn't miss her elbow in his ribs, though. "Ow!" He turned and frowned down at her. "What was that for?"

Donna raised her eyebrows and inclined her head pointedly toward Sarah. The Doctor looked over at the other woman, then back at Donna. He widened his eyes and shrugged.

"Say something," Donna hissed.

The Doctor's mouth hung open and he blinked at her a few times before answering. "What?"

Donna's sigh held a world of exasperation. "I'm sorry is usually a good start," she said as if speaking to a two-year-old.

The Doctor gave Sarah's huddled form a long, lingering look. "I already said that."

That earned him another Donna sigh, this time with an eye roll. "That's not the sorry I'm talking about." The Time Lord just stared at her, baffled. "Say you're sorry for saying you're sorry," she prompted. His eyebrows lowered and his mouth fell open just a bit. "That you bonded with her." She spelled it out for him with great deliberation.

"I'm not sorry for that," the Doctor said.

"But you said..."

The Doctor cut her off with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry for all the trouble it's caused her. But..." He paused, and his deep brown eyes drank in the sight of Sarah with such love and longing that even Donna felt an echo of it. "...I could never be sorry for bonding with her."

Donna nodded approval. "OK. That's a good start." She checked on Sarah, whose posture had softened just a bit, her head now leaning against the bars of the cage. "Go on."

The Doctor gave her another baffled look, this time starting to veer toward exasperation himself. He shrugged again.

"Say something else," Donna prompted.

"Like what?"

Donna sighed deeply and loudly. "Men. Spacemen. All alike." She gave him a pointed look. "Say something else nice. Look at her. She's still mad at you."

The Doctor did as asked, and his eyes grew soft and sorrowful. "She's not mad at me."

"Could have fooled me," Donna said skeptically.

"She's mad at herself," the Time Lord continued quietly.

"Well, I was completely and utterly useless back there, wasn't I?" Sarah turned to face them, green eyes blazing. "If Donna hadn't..." She caught herself, swallowed hard, shook her head disgustedly, then faced back to stare out between the bars.

The Doctor compressed his lips. "She's not used to not being able to do things she puts her mind to."

Donna nodded. "I can see that."

"Well, it's ridiculous, isn't it?" She swivelled her head to face them again, met the Doctor's eyes directly, winced, and turned away. "It was one thing when I was just feeling what you were feeling. But to be completely paralyzed by it...to the point of being....useless!" She huffed disgustedly, underscoring the uselessness of being useless.

"You _were _paralyzed," the Doctor said gently. "That venom..."

"No, _you _were paralyzed," she shot back, again meeting his eyes briefly, then grimacing and looking away. "I hadn't been quilled. It was all in my head!"

"In your heart," he responded, even more gently.

The cage suddenly jerked, then rumbled forward. The Doctor gripped the bars hard, wincing and trying to hold himself steady against the sway and roll. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, her face screwed up in a look of intense concentration.

"You're not mad at him?" Donna asked in the tone of someone who wants to confirm something she's having trouble believing.

Sarah shook her head, then gave her a "how could I be?" look and shook it again, more emphatically.

"Then why can't you even look at him?"

Sarah sighed and gazed out the bars at the passing scenery. "It hurts," she admitted reluctantly.

Donna scowled at the Time Lord and scanned him from the top of his spikey hair to the bottoms of his trainers. "He's not _that _hideous."

Sarah gave a short laugh and shook her head.

"She's a bit hypersensitive right now," the Doctor explained. "The...erm...what happened back there. Really heightened the bond."

"So just looking at you hurts?"

"Well. Visual contact also heightens the bond. Not as much as physical contact. Like..." He looked at Sarah with a soft smile. "...lip to lip contact. But still. In her heightened state..."

Donna stared at Sarah as if she were a laboratory experiment. "Is it going to wear off?"

"I certainly hope so," Sarah answered quickly.

Donna looked to the Doctor for confirmation, but he just shook his head. "I have no idea. Doesn't happen to..."

"...Time Ladies." Sarah finished the sentence with him.

"Right." He was silent for a moment, then his face lighted with a cheery grin. "Good chance to practice blocking me. Nothing else to do in here." He rolled his eyes, taking in the drab interior of the cage that confined them, thereby missing Sarah's look of daggers.


	16. Chapter 16

As the little caravan reached the outskirts of the city, it gathered a following of blobby creatures of various sizes and hues. Some just stood oozily by as the herd of not-so-new and the line of cages passed while others kept pace with the parade for awhile. Their cage drew the greatest number of followers which oozed over and under each other, jostling for position close to the bars.

"They are amazed." The Doctor translated the splashes, drips and sploops they heard from all around to the best of his ability for his companions. "They have never seen anything remotely like us."

"Oi! Take a picture, it lasts longer," Donna called at the ever-increasing horde of followers. She then stuck her arms out between the bars and made a series of mildly rude to very rude gestures at them.

Sarah chuckled. "Better hope they're not even the least bit psychic and pick up on what you're saying."

Donna turned to stare at her, startled. "You think?"

Sarah shrugged and looked at the Doctor, who shook his head. "I'm not getting anything from them."

Sarah kept her eyes on him, gauging her own feelings. Either she had managed to block him-finally-or he'd metabolized the last of the porcupine toxin and was feeling himself again. Probably the latter, she decided, and went back to watching the local denizens slithering and slooping alongside of their cage.

The dirt track they rode in on gradually morphed into a proper roadway, with houses on each side, houses that resembled the adobe huts of the native tribes of the southwestern United States more than anything else Sarah could use as a frame of reference. As they continued further into the city, the huts grew to two and three story buildings that started to look like the cliff dwellings of the ancient Anasazi. Before long, the street opened up into a spacious town square, ringed by small booths. Their caravan made a circle in the center of the square with the herd of not-so-new in the middle, the cages forming their corral.

Word of their arrival apparently travelled fast, as more and more of the blobby creatures showed up, oozing around the cages and the herd. Donna slumped in a corner, resigned to her new status as a creature on exhibition but still not happy about it and giving them the least possible to ogle. Sarah sat quietly studying the creatures and their surroundings, while the Doctor stood, hanging on to the bars, watching everything with intense interest and trying to mimic the sounds the creatures were making. Sarah by now had learned to recognize the splashy laughter of the things, and heard raucous waves of it in response to the Doctor's efforts.

He gave a frustrated huff and looked down at her with one eyebrow raised. She answered his look with a wry smile. "Keep trying," she said. "You'll get it."

"He's not used to not being able to do something when he puts his mind to it, either," Donna observed from her corner, and Sarah smiled. She knew that. Well.

They lost a portion of their audience as the crowd made a general sploop toward a central location where one of the blobs was holding a bleating not-so-new by means of a tentacle wrapped around its neck. The blob made a loud liquid noise, then, one by one, various members of the crowd took turns extruding a tentacle and waving it in the air. Eventually, the tentacles stopped appearing and the creature who had waved last oozed up to the not-so-new, wrapped a pseudopod around its neck and sloped off with it.

"It's an auction," Sarah observed.

The Doctor nodded. "A livestock auction."

Donna rose to her knees and grabbed two of the bars, peering out between them. "And we're on offer?"

"Not yet," the Doctor said as he watched another not-so-new led out and stood front and center for all to examine. The tentacle-waving began again and the not-so-new was soon led off by another of the blobs. "I expect we'll be the _pièce de résistance_and held back till last."

Sarah and Donna stared up at him for a second, then at each other. "Wonder what we'll bring," Sarah said, trying for a light tone and not entirely succeeding.

"Wonder who'll be bidding," Donna said, making no attempt to disguise the worry in her voice. "And what they'll have in mind for us once they've bought us."

The not-so-new herd was rapidly dispersed, at which point the blobs erected a rectangular block, about two feet high, in the center of the square. They proceeded to trot out the denizens of the other cages, one at a time, placing them on the block so their bidders could get a clear view of them. These creatures, which ranged from one of the rainbow-coloured porcupines, its spines safely contained in what looked like clear nylon net, to a multi-limbed, multi-mouthed creature with the willowy body of a python, were clearly more valuable than the not-so-new, to judge by the length and excitement of the bidding. Still, in the end, each one was led or carried or carted off by a new owner.

When the auctioneer-blob approached their cage at last, the crowd grew silent. Sarah's heart sank, but she lightly bit her bottom lip, took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. The Doctor gave them both encouraging smiles as the blob broke the seal on their door, opened it and immediately shot out three tentacles that wrapped around their necks before they could even take a step forward.

Thirty years ago, Sarah might have been able to gracefully exit a cage that stood three feet off the ground whilst trying to loosen the grip of an alien tentacle from around her neck. Or...possibly not. She certainly didn't manage it this time. The Doctor tried to hang back and help her, but was promptly jerked nearly off his feet by his captor and dragged toward the auction block. Once on the ground, Sarah quickly found her feet, and, her hands wrapped around the rubbery, blubbery sausage-casing-filled-with-gelatinous-mucous-feeling tentacle that was squeezing her neck, followed behind.

When they arrived at the block, the Doctor half stepped, half was lifted onto it. The crowd surged forward, making hushed liquid noises. Some in the front ranks extruded long, thin tentacles that snaked all over the Doctor's body, flipping his bedraggled tux jacket open, slithering into his pockets, between the buttons of his shirt, and up his trouser legs. He flinched back from their touch, all the while making dripping and blubbing protest noises at them, but they just laughed splashily and continued to probe him with great curiosity He batted the intrusive pseudopods away, only to find his wrists suddenly encircled by tentacles, pulled behind his back and tightly lashed together in much the same way the cage door had been sealed. At that point, he straightened to his full height, raised his face to the sky, closed his eyes, heaved a resigned sigh and went totally still.

A tentacle waved, one of the blobs blurped loudly, and the bidding was on. Sarah and Donna exchanged one look, then closed their eyes and emulated the Doctor's still pose. After a spate of bidding so lively that it sounded like a nor'easter blowing against a rocky coast, the Doctor was taken off the block and Donna was lifted up in his place. The tentacles snaked out, slithering through her long, ginger hair, lifting it and tossing it about. She jerked her head away but otherwise stood still for the probing until one of them poked her chest, apparently noticing that she had some rather bouncy appendages on it that the Doctor did not have.

"Oi!" she shouted. "None of that!" She started to bat them away, then glanced over her shoulder at the blob that had pinioned the Doctor's hands, and settled for crossing her arms in front of her chest protectively.

When her turn came, Sarah just wanted it to be over. Forewarned by the others' experiences, she braced herself for the feel of tentacles up her skirt and in her hair, and folded her arms over her chest before they got a chance to make comparisons between her and Donna.

Whatever the alien equivalent of a gavel was, it must have finally sounded, because the crowd started dispersing even as three of the blobs came forward. One wrapped a tentacle around the Doctor's bound wrists while the other two each snaked a pseudopod around Donna's and Sarah's waists. Sarah felt the restraining tentacle that had been around her neck loosen and took a deep, relieved breath, rubbing away the slimy feel of it. She felt a tug at her waist and took an involuntary step forward, then looked around for the others.

Her eyes went wide as she saw them both being led off in different directions. The Doctor was digging in his heels, pulling hard against his bonds and shouting imprecations in a number of different languages. Donna's eyes were huge as she, too, fought the pull of the tentacle that had her firmly in its grasp.

"No!" she wailed.

"We have to stay together," the Doctor said through gritted teeth, resisting the pull of the tentacle with all his strength. "You can't separate us!"

Sarah just stared, horrified, her mouth hanging open as she was dragged away from her friends. The Doctor's eyes caught hers and she felt his desperation lance into her soul like a lightning bolt.

"I'll find you," he shouted across the ever-growing gap between them. "Hang on. Do what they want. Stay safe. I'll find you."

"That's fine for the two of you," Donna wailed, raining futile blows against the tentacle of the creature that was dragging her away. "You can find each other. What about me?"

"I'll find you," the Doctor shouted again, this time directly to Donna. "Trust me. I'll find you."

As panicked as Sarah was at the thought of being alone in this alien world, at the mercy of an alien captor, she understood Donna's deeper terror. Bonded with the Doctor, she could never truly be alone as long as he lived. But Donna...

"We'll find you," she called out as they were dragged further and further apart. "We'll find you, Donna." She had no idea how, but she knew neither she nor the Doctor would ever give up looking until they had located and freed their companion and were together again.

Sarah twisted and turned, looking first over one shoulder, then the other, trying to keep her companions in sight for as long as possible. But the pseudopod around her waist was not to be argued with. She tripped and stumbled along in the wake of her captor, blind to where it was dragging her, until the Doctor and Donna had both disappeared up different streets, Donna's cries pathetically echoing through the air. Then, even that connection to her friends was gone.

She reluctantly straightened her shoulders and turned to face the creature that had her in tow, ready to pick up the pace. But the blobby creature stopped next to a wagon and, before she could decide whether she was supposed to climb aboard, much less do so, it hoisted her in the air and plopped her down in the back. It oozed up onto the driver's seat, never letting go of its hold on her waist, and sent out a new tentacle toward the six not-so-new that were hitched to the front of the wagon. They pranced nervously when the pseudopod arced above them, then started clip-clopping forward as the tentacle snapped like a whip over their heads.

The road climbed and snaked through a maze of houses that got progressively larger and more elaborate. _Well, at least I got sold into the good part of town,_ Sarah thought with an ironic sniff.

It certainly seemed that way when they eventually pulled up in front of a sprawling habitation that covered most of the top of the hill-_quite the blob mansion_, she thought. The driver-blob stopped the team, lifted her out of the wagon and set her on her feet. A rather larger, light-khaki-colored blob met them at the door, wrapped a pseudopod around her waist and apparently dismissed the creature who had fetched her home. She was led into the house where four more blobs of slightly varying sizes and hues waited.

The blob that had her in tow released her, flattened itself to half its original height and sent out a thick row of short tentacles all around its body at floor level. These short tentacles waved rhythmically like fringe in the wind. Sarah studied this display, bemused, for a moment, then shrugged and dropped a courtesy to the four blobs, holding the sides of her tattered ball gown out with all the dignity she could muster.

The familiar splashy sound of blob laughter echoed through the room. She straightened up and stared at her hosts. _Owners_, she corrected herself mentally. _Well, they seemed to like that. The Doctor said do what they want. Stay safe. _Keeping them happy might be a way to do that, until she could figure out how to find the Doctor and Donna, or they found her.

The blobs oozed toward her, tendrils outstretched. Her eyes widened as she tried to back slowly away, only to bump into the soft, squishy surface of one that had slipped around behind her. _Or maybe that didn't make them happy,_ she thought worriedly.

The tendrils touched her gently, brushed across her skin, her clothes, her hair. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding as more and more of the pseudopods roamed over her body. _They're just curious,_ she told herself. _No eyes. No ears or noses. Not so's you'd notice anyway,_ she thought. _Their dominant sense is obviously touch. Nothing personal in it. Nothing to take offense at. Nothing…  
_  
"Now that's quite enough!" she burst out, slapping away a tendril that was getting far too personal for comfort. It drew back, then tentatively advanced again. "I said that's enough," Sarah said firmly, stomping one foot. The splashy laughter came again, but more subdued this time, and the creature she'd addressed backed off fractionally. "Thank you," she said, in an "it's about time" tone.

Just then another blob-creature oozed into the room, followed by another, then another. Before long, the dripping and burbling sounds generated by her growing audience made Sarah feel as if she were standing under a waterfall or by a babbling brook. "You are a chatty lot," she observed. The room fell silent for a moment, then the liquid noises burst forth at twice the volume.

"And you don't seem to have any personal space issues," she added, trying to establish a bit more of it for herself. As the room had filled, the creatures had drawn themselves up and become taller and narrower, making it possible to fit more of them in the same floor space. They also didn't seem to mind being "cheek to cheek", Sarah thought, although she wasn't sure what part of their surface might actually be a cheek In places, the creatures crammed themselves together so tightly they formed a solid gelatinous wall, with only subtle variations in shade to indicate where one began and the other ended.

Several new creatures appeared in the doorway, holding aloft large wooden trays covered in small, round, greenish patties. They worked their way through the crowd and the other creatures snaked tentacles out and snagged the patties off the trays. "Wonder what that's in aid of," Sarah mused as she watched the creatures set the items on top of their bodies. They carried on chatting in their liquid way and waving their tentacles about while the patty slowly melted into their body.

_Food! _Sarah's empty stomach cried.

_Food for these things, maybe,_ her brain answered. _But for humans?_

Her stomach didn't care. With a sigh, she took a small step toward the nearest tray-carrier. The room went silent. She took another step and the creatures directly in her path melted apart. She pushed gingerly between them and reached up toward the tray. A furious dripping sound came from one of the blobs, and the one with the tray lowered it to her eye level.

She poked one of the green patties, then broke a tiny piece off and raised it to her nose. It looked like a wad of seaweed and smelled vaguely fishy.

One of the blobs laughed, reached out with a tentacle, picked up a patty and placed it on top of Sarah's head. She almost laughed herself as she reached up and took it off. "Cheeky," she chided it. "It would sit up there till it spoiled. Assuming it isn't already," she added _sotto voce_. "That's not how we eat. Ingest food," she clarified, rather pointlessly. She held up the broken-off piece, showed it to her audience as if she were a teacher doing a demonstration, then hesitantly put it in her mouth and chewed.

What could only be described as a liquid gasp came from the blobs. Sarah swallowed hard, then forced a smile. "Not so bad," she said. "Now let's give it a minute to see if it kills me." When she felt no impending doom or sickness coming on, she took another, bigger bite, chewed and swallowed. "I could get used to this," she said, more to convince herself than them.

Suddenly, there were tentacles full of food in her face, so many she stepped back a pace in surprise. "Ah. Thank you," she said uncertainly. When she didn't take any of the offered patties, the tentacles holding them dropped a few inches in obvious disappointment. One of the blobs emitted a loud blurp and raced out of the room, coming back in a minute with a pinkish cube. It slooped and slithered through the packed crowd and held the cube out to Sarah. She looked at it, then at the creature, then reached out to accept the gift. "Thank you," she said. She looked the cube over, poked it with her finger, sniffed it, licked it, then took a tiny taste. A liquid slurp of satisfaction came from the blobs.

"Funny how you can feel all eyes are on you in a room full of eyeless creatures," Sarah mused as she chewed and swallowed. This food was more to her liking and she nodded, took a big bite, and smiled at the creature who gave it to her. "What's the point of that?" she scolded herself immediately. "You have no clue what a smile and a nod mean, do you?" she asked the blobs. "You can't even see them. Can you?"

A peal of wet laughter followed. "Well, at least you're amused," Sarah said.

Being the guest of honor at a "look at the strange creature I just bought" party got tiring, Sarah discovered. Once her stomach was full and she was fairly sure their plans for her didn't include a spit and a cooking fire, she realized just how bone weary she was. It had been a long and exhausting day, being sold, then pried forcibly apart from her friends, then pawed-_erm…tentacled_-and exhibited. And this on top of weeks of hard travel, short rations and sleeping rough. She wanted nothing more at the moment than to find a quiet corner where she could curl up and rest. Well. She wanted the Doctor more. And Donna. And Harry. And a hot bath. And clean clothes. And a full English breakfast. And all of the comfort and security of her dear old home on Bannerman Road. And, oh, could she murder a cup of tea! But as none of those things appeared to be within her reach, she would settle for a good long kip.

"Do blobs need beds?" she asked herself as she looked around the room. She tried to go through one of the doors to search the rest of the house, but a tawny blob planted itself in her way and refused to let her through. "Fine," she said, turning back to the party.

There was no furniture in the room they were in, but there were four swathes of fabric, one in each corner, suspended from the ceiling by long twisted vines. Sarah stared at them blankly for a minute. _Decoration? Or… _Then the penny dropped. "Blob hammocks!" she said brightly and headed for the nearest one. She again felt that all eyes were on her, absence of eyes notwithstanding, as she pulled herself up onto the piece of fabric and rolled into its center. It swayed gently back and forth for a bit, and she closed her eyes and smiled. _Watch the alien sleep! _she thought and then grinned to herself. Maybe this wasn't a blob hammock after all, but it would certainly do for a human one.

As her body relaxed, she pulled her mind into focus with an effort, letting the sounds of the blob party flow around her and fade into a meaningless background. She breathed deeply, in, out, in, slowing her breath, calming her mind, centering her consciousness. Then she sent her heart, soul and spirit out in search of the Doctor.

He was there. Unmistakable. She smiled at the feel of him. "I'm here," she called to him soundlessly. "I'm fine. Safe. Just tired. And missing you." She waited. The feel of him stayed steady. If she had been free to leave, she could have headed straight toward him as if she were a compass and he were her True North. _He IS my True North,_ she thought. _My polestar._

But no reply came, no silent response to her call. She tried again, casting her love and longing out along the heartline that led to him. She waited for a response.

If one came, it came after sleep overtook her.


	17. Chapter 17

_Poke._

____

Poke.

____

_Poke poke poke._

Sarah moaned and burrowed her cheek into the fabric. "Harry. Stop."

_Poke.  
_  
"Harry." With an exasperated sigh, Sarah turned her head and opened her eyes. She blinked at the sight of a giant amoeba-creature, a slim pseudopod extended toward her, its tip a few inches from her face. "Oh," she said flatly. "Right." She blew out a long breath, then swung her legs over the side of the hammock and sat up. She rubbed her eyes and ran her fingers through her lank, tangled locks. "What's for breakfast?" she asked in as bright a tone as she could manage.

The tentacle that had been poking her wrapped around her wrist and pulled.

"Alright, I'm coming," she said, hopping down from the hammock and following her owner. She immediately grabbed onto the tentacle with her free hand to steady herself as her feet slipped and she nearly landed on her posterior. "I don't remember that," she said, staring down at the floor, which was covered with slick, slimy patches.

The blob tugged insistently on her arm and she followed, picking her way carefully between the slippery spots.

"You know," she said, as the creature led her through an arched doorway. "Humans…creatures like me, that is…we tend to need to…erm…use the loo when we first wake up. I don't suppose…" She blew out a puff of air and studied the blob closely. "No, I don't suppose. I don't even know if you…people…go to the loo. Or if you do, where you do. Or how." She gave a tentative pull against the pseudopod wrapped around her wrist, to see if she could perhaps lead it on a tour of the building in search of something resembling toilet facilities, but it just tugged back.

It led her into a room whose central feature was a long counter piled with fruit and stringy green vegetable matter. At the end of the counter were two holes in the floor. One brimmed with water and the other appeared to be empty. Her guide extruded a new pseudopod, looped it around the top of a wooden bucket that sat next to the water-filled hole, dipped it in and pulled it out, half-filled. It placed the bucket in front of Sarah, and then pulled a clump of brown leaves off a hook on the wall and pushed that at Sarah.

Sarah accepted the odd bundle and frowned at it, turning it over in her hands. The leaves were bound together at their stems, and were remarkably soft and pliable. She looked at the bucket, then at the blob, then back at the clump of leaves. "Erm…hmm," she said, a bit nonplussed. "You…did you really…hmm." She looked at the bucket again and shrugged her shoulders. "Any port in a storm." She hiked up the tattered remnants of her skirt, positioned herself over the bucket, then looked at the blob. "You could at least turn your…oh. Never mind." She sighed with relief as the sound of liquid tinkling into liquid rose from the bucket.

A blob appeared in the doorway-then another-then another. Sarah's eyes went round as she felt herself to be the center of attention again. She applied the soft, absorbent leaves as quickly and surreptitiously as she could, then stepped off the bucket and shook her skirt down into a semblance of order. "I'm better for that," she assured her audience.

The four blobs oozed around the bucket, extruding tentacles and sticking the tips into the liquid. "Oh, don't…" Sarah said, screwing up her face. "Ew."

One of the blobs produced a liquid tinkling noise, which was then repeated by the others. It sounded very familiar to Sarah and she tipped her head to listen more closely. Suddenly, the penny dropped. "Oh!" she cried, laughing . "I wonder what I said!"

One of the blobs wrapped a tentacle around the bucket, dumped its contents into the empty hole, and filled it again from the water hole. It took the clump of leaves from Sarah and dunked it in the bucket, swished it around, then held it up and let it drip dry. It again dumped the bucket into the empty hole, then filled it , then put the clump of leaves in it, It wrapped a tentacle around Sarah's wrist and oozed off, Sarah and bucket in tow, back to the room where the party had been.

Once they were inside the arched doorway, it put the bucket down, lifted the wet leaf clump out of it and pushed it at Sarah. She took it, and the creature pulled her hand down towards the floor. Sarah went down hard on her knees at the force of the thing's pull, and it proceeded to guide her hand through the motions of scrubbing the floor.

"I get it, I get it," Sarah said. "Humph," she muttered, half-heartedly pushing the clump of leaves across the floor. The tentacle slid off her wrist. She stopped moving. The tentacle wrapped around her wrist and moved her hand in a circular motion. "Alright, I get it," she repeated. "The party's over and Cinderella's back at work." She scrubbed at one of the slimy patches, then dunked the clump of leaves in the bucket, rinsed it, wrung it out, and crept forward to work on the next bit. "Couldn't I at least have a proper mop?" she asked as she scrubbed. "Or some knee pads?" She glanced up at the blob, which was staying close by, apparently supervising her. "No reason for you all to need a mop on a stick, I suppose," she said as she scrubbed. "No backaches for you. And no knees."

Pink sunlight was streaming in the windows when Sarah finally finished the floor. She tossed the leaves into the bucket, sat back against the wall, and rubbed her sore knees. The blob, which had only checked in on her periodically once it became obvious that Sarah knew what was expected of her, returned, oozed all around the room, then picked up the bucket and wrapped a tentacle around Sarah's wrist. Sarah scrabbled to her feet, arching her aching back as she was tugged along.

By the time the pink sun set and the blue sun rose, Sarah had learned more about her new home than she'd dared hope. Unfortunately, the main thing she learned was that everything seemed to be in need of a good scrubbing, and she was the one expected to do it. "Keep them happy," she grumbled as she worked. "Stay safe." She paused periodically in her labours to close her eyes and focus on the Doctor. Each time, she found him, found his essence like a ray of sunshine beaming into her soul. _Bright, sparkling white sunshine,_ she thought. _None of this pastel nonsense._ But each time she tried to reach him telepathically, nothing but silence greeted her efforts. It was like listening to an open phone line, knowing someone was there, on the other end, but not being able to hear them speaking.

As the blue sun set, Sarah was led back into the main room. It was once again full of the amoeba-creatures. She couldn't tell if the same crew were back for another gawk at her, or if this was a new crowd getting their first peek at the exotic animal her owner had purchased. "It's all go here, isn't it?" she said bitterly, her aching knees and back, sore muscles and empty stomach conspiring to darken her mood.

The blob let go of her wrist and she headed straight for the nearest hammock, already savoring the thought of stretching out in it and resting her weary body. When she reached her sanctuary, though, she found it already occupied. "Oh. Sorry," she said to the blob that lounged in it. She turned and headed for one of the other corners of the room to seek out an empty hammock, but each one was bulging with the shapeless body of a giant amoeba.

"Wonder if I could just lie on top of you," she said. "You look soft." She thought about the food that they had placed on top of their bodies, and how it had been slowly absorbed, and decided it wasn't worth a test run

She stood, feeling as utterly alone as she had ever felt, and closed her eyes, seeking the comfort of the Doctor's mental touch. Before she could take a single deep breath, though, she felt a tentacle around her wrist and a now familiar tug.

The blob housekeeper, as Sarah had started thinking of the creature that had supervised her all day, led her to the room with the water hole. It lifted a large tray laden with the green patties and pink cubes of the previous party, as well as some violet balls and brown globs that Sarah hadn't seen before. It pushed the tray at Sarah, who accepted it with some difficulty but considerable relief.

"Thanks," she said, balancing the tray on one hand as she picked a pink cube off of it and took a bite. "I'm starving."

The blob smacked her hand with a tentacle, making her drop the food. "Oi!" Sarah said, shaking her stinging hand and glaring at the creature.

It, of course, took no notice of her outrage, just gave her a push toward the doorway. Sarah tried to set the tray down, but tentacles immediately shot out and held it and her hands in place. "Fine," she said, compressing her lips. "But you can't be there all the time."

She headed out into the room, holding the tray aloft, offering treats to the guest-blobs and earning gusts of splashy laughter as they helped themselves. She also managed to sneak enough nibbles and bites to finally quiet her hunger pangs.

The blobs slooped off as the blue sun set, much as they had done the previous sun-cycle, and Sarah was allowed to climb into a fabric sling and fall immediately into a dead sleep. She awakened to another day of drudgery as the pink sun rose. Her cautious attempts to leave the property and go in search of the Doctor were quickly foiled, and she realized that, if she were going to escape, she would have to do more than just walk out the front door. She would have to get sneaky. She would have to have a plan.

_Funny how hard it is to plan, though, when you're constantly working_, she thought as she scrubbed yet another slimy patch off the floor after yet another night of blob partying. The best she could manage was to reach a sort of zen state where her body worked away mechanically while her mind detached itself. Even when she was able to achieve that level of concentration, though, she found it hard to plan. When she was in that state, her mind naturally zeroed in on the Doctor. _Where are you?_ she called out to him. _Are you alright? What are they doing to you?_ She received no dire response to feed her fears, but they didn't really need feeding. Alone in an alien world, it was a full time job for her to keep her optimism levels topped up. It took all the strength she had to spare.

o O o O o

_Sarah._

Sarah froze. She was on the floor, rolled over on one hip to spare her knees, scrubbing as slowly and undiligently as she thought she could get away with, her eyes closed, her mind, heart and soul focused on that open phone line to the Doctor. And finally, finally, there was an answer.

_Sarah_.

The beloved voice came again, sounding even clearer than before.

_Oh yes! Doctor! I'm here!_ She beamed the thought out to him with all the mental force at her command. _Where are you? Are you alright?_

_I'm fine. I'm right here._

Sarah smiled. _I didn't mean telepathically._

_Neither did I. _His voice was soft and warm and had a hint of amusement in it. _Open your eyes, terza._

Sarah froze again for a nanosecond. Then her eyes flew open. The freckled face, tousled hair, dancing brown eyes and delighted grin of her favorite Time Lord were a foot in front of her face.

"Doctor!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck.

He wrapped his arms around her and stood up, taking her with him, holding her tightly and spinning them both in place.

"How did…what hap….where did…." she sputtered helplessly.

He set her down, brushed her tangled locks back from her face and gave her a searching look. Apparently he was reassured by what he saw, as his smile grew broader.

"Sarah," he said, taking her hand and turning her to face the trio of blobs that were lined up behind them. "I'd like you to meet…" He stopped, bent to pick up a small wooden bucket half-full of water, splashed briefly in it, then scooped a handful of water out of it and let it run noisily back into the bucket.

He beamed at her. She looked at him blankly.

The blob in the middle made a liquid noise and extruded a tentacle in her direction. She took a hasty step back.

"No, no," the Doctor said, pulling her forward and letting go of her hand. "I've told him about the human custom of shaking hands."

Sarah stared into the Time Lord's delighted eyes, then looked at the tentacle, then back at the Time Lord. When he gave her an encouraging nod, she held out her hand, gingerly took the end of the tentacle and shook it.

"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," she said, unable to keep her upper lip from curling in distaste. "Mr…." She looked questioningly at the Doctor.

"Oh." He put his hand in his little bucket and repeated the actions and sounds he'd made before. She gave him another blank look. "Oh. Well. Let's see. In English…." He frowned. "Closest I can come is Drizzlesploop." He articulated the final p so that it sounded like a drop of water falling into a bucket.

Sarah stared at him. "Drizzlesploop?" she repeated flatly. He nodded, grinning from ear to ear, fairly vibrating with excitement. Sarah had never-well, rarely-well, actually, fairly frequently-seen him so pleased with himself. "Oooh," she breathed as the penny dropped. "You did it!"

"I did!" he agreed, grinning hugely.

"You figured it out!"

"Yes I did!" he said, clicking his teeth and nodding enthusiastically.

"You can speak their language!"

"I can!" he crowed.

"You're brilliant!"

"I am!" he agreed wholeheartedly.

"How did you…" Her voice trailed off as she looked at the little bucket he held and remembered her own inadvertent communication with the blobs when she used a bucket much like it. She met the Doctor's eyes with that memory in mind. He didn't answer out loud-didn't have to. His raised eyebrows and rolling eyes told her her guess was spot on.

She laughed. "Oh, who cares how you broke the code. You did it! And Drizzlesploop here is…" She looked a question at him.

"The chap who bought me. And it's Professor Drizzlesploop, actually." Sarah pulled a suitably impressed face and he went on. "He bid on me because he recognized that I was trying to speak their language. Thought I'd be worth studying."

"I've always found you to be," she confirmed, and he laughed. "And...Donna?" she asked, growing serious.

"Let's go get her," he said, offering her his arm.

She took it, but stood still, looking askance at the blobs ranged in front of them. "You sure they're going to let me go?"

"Oh yes," he said. "The professor has explained that we're actually sentient creatures and shouldn't be bought or sold."

Sarah still wasn't sure. "They're not going to ask us for a refund?"

He laughed. "Us? If they ask anyone for a refund, it will be the animal traders. But no. I think they feel they've got their money's worth out of you."

She looked at him and laughed. "They must not have paid much then."

He chuckled. "Well, they've shown you off to all of their friends by now. The novelty has worn off. And they say you're rubbish at housework."

Sarah's jaw dropped and she huffed in offended disbelief. "Well. I never!"

He pulled her close and squeezed her shoulders. "Be glad," he whispered in her ear.

No one barred their way as they followed the blob professor out the door and to a wagon with four not-so-new hitched to it. They all climbed aboard and, with the professor driving his team, headed away from Sarah's temporary home.

It wasn't very long before they pulled up in front of another large house. The professor oozed down from the wagon and led the way to the front door. A blob servant (Sarah surmised) opened the door, ushered them in, and promptly disappeared down a hallway. When a different blob appeared from the same hallway moments later, a lively, splashy, drippy conversation ensued, the Doctor splashing and dripping away in his little bucket, ten to the dozen. Sarah stood patiently by, her arms crossed, trying not to let all the liquid noises make her need to cross her legs as well.

"Come on," the Doctor abruptly said, as the blobs headed further into the house. They followed and soon they emerged from the building into a back garden. They saw a good-sized body of murky water (_swimming pool?_ Sarah wondered) off to one side, and a small, square building whose roof came up to the Doctor's waist on the other.

The resident blob gurgled and the Doctor responded, taking a handful of water from his bucket, putting it in his mouth, throwing his head back and gargling at varying speeds and pitches. He spit the water out as the two blobs splash-laughed.

"They say I have a terrible accent," the Doctor admitted ruefully.

Sarah chuckled. "As long as they understand you. Did they say where Donna was?"

"Right here," he responded. "Donna!"

Sarah looked around the garden, wondering where she'd lost the plot. Then she heard a rustle from inside the small building and saw a headful of snarled red hair emerge from the low door.

As Donna crawled out of the building on all fours, Sarah saw that she had a braided collar around her neck. A six foot chain attached the collar to the shed. Once she was clear of the door, she stood up.

"One laugh. One snigger. One chuckle. And you are toast. Got it, Spaceboy?"

The Doctor nodded solemnly, but Sarah saw muscles jumping in his cheeks with the effort to control his facial muscles.

"And where have you been!" Donna shouted. "What took you so long?"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry. I got here as fast as I could." He flapped his hand in the bucket, then squeezed his fist shut on a handful of water, making it geyser up an inch or two and fall back with a splash.

Donna scowled at the Time Lord and his bucket. "And what in the name of bloody-beats-all is that in aid of?"

"He's talking to them," Sarah explained quickly.

Donna looked at her for a long moment before answering. "Right," she finally said. Then, as if registering Sarah's presence for the first time, her features softened. "You okay?"

Sarah nodded. "Bit of housemaid's knee, but I'll recover," she said with a smile.

Donna frowned. "They put you to work?" Sarah nodded. Donna shook her head in disbelief, then fingered the collar that circled her neck tightly. "Still, better than this. Speaking of which..." Her voice raised in volume and pitch and she directed her words to the Doctor. "Get me out of this!"

The Doctor made a shushing noise over his shoulder at her. "Working on it," he said, then went back to his bucket-talking.

o O o O o

"Now what?"

They were gathered in the professor's kitchen, Sarah and Donna perched on a table, the Doctor dangling his long legs from a countertop. Donna was still rubbing her chafed neck off and on, but was, overall, none the worse for wear for her brief spell in captivity.

"Now we find the New," the Doctor answered firmly. He moved his hand in the bucket, translating his words for the professor.

"Does he know where to find them?" Sarah asked, nodding toward their blob host.

The Doctor splashed in his bucket and the professor answered in liquid tones.

"He has a general idea," the Doctor translated. The professor went on and he listened closely, then continued. "The animal traders have captured some and put them up for auction, he says They brought a high price thanks to their size and color, but they didn't work out. Not trainable. Kept trying to escape. If they couldn't escape…" He broke off, just listening, then looked grim. "They…pined away."

Both women frowned at him, puzzled. "Wouldn't eat. Wouldn't drink. Just…lost the will to live," he clarified.

"And?" Donna asked, forcing him to state the obvious.

"They died," he said simply.

"Of course they did," Sarah said softly as realization dawned. The other two looked at her. "Remember? When it first appeared? On Bannerman Road? It said…" She frowned in concentration. "It was so long ago," she said, shaking her head. "Can't remember the exact words. But it was something about…the others." She looked at the professor. "And how they thought the New were the same as the Old. But the New couldn't survive being treated like the Old."

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully, remembering. Then he laughed softly. "Well. It only took us how long to figure out that part? The rest should be cake, right?"

Donna snorted and shook her head, and Sarah gave him a crooked smile.

When the pink sun next rose, it found the four of them in a heavily-loaded wagon drawn by six not-so-new, heading out of the city, back the way the animal traders had come into it.

The Doctor and the professor shared the driver's seat, while Sarah and Donna tried to find a comfortable place among the supplies in the back

"Better than walking," Sarah reminded herself as she rearranged the water jugs and food bags for the umpteenth time.

"True," Donna agreed, just as they went over a larger-than-average bump. Both women grabbed for the sides of the wagon, barely managing to keep from being bounced out. Once they settled back into a relatively smooth part of the track, they exchanged glances. "Most of the time," Donna added, and Sarah snorted a laugh.

They camped during each lavender sun-cycle, sleeping in hammocks that the professor had provided, which they strung up between trees as long as they were available. When they left the forested area behind and ventured into the sea of grass where the Doctor, Donna and Sarah had first landed on this world, they drove poles into the ground and hung one end of the hammock from a pole and the other from a corner of the wagon when they stopped to rest.

As they traveled during the pink and blue sun cycles, the Doctor spent more and more time riding the driver's seat like a surf board, his tall, lean figure rocking with the motion of the wagon as he scanned the horizon.

"Does this look familiar?" he would ask periodically, looking down at his companions. They would roll their eyes at each other, look pointedly at the featureless walls of grass that enclosed the rough track they were on, then look up at him with identical "you must be joking" expressions. "Right," he would say, nodding, then turned back to scanning the horizon.

Finally, the grass started thinning and growing shorter. Instead of turning into a forest, the way it had on the way to the city, the terrain gradually became a prairie with vegetation in various shades of tan growing no taller than knee-high to a Time Lord. The professor assured them that it was reportedly in this region that the animal traders claimed to have found and captured the New.

Now the Doctor spent most of his time walking beside the wagon, making meandering side trips through the vegetation, scanning the ground for tracks or any traces of animal life. Sarah and Donna took turns sharing the driver's seat with the professor, keeping an eye out for signs of life.

Sarah was sat in the back of the wagon, half daydreaming about clean sheets and hot showers and Dairy Milk bars and half searching the horizon to the side and rear of the wagon, when a distant flash of bright green caught her eye. She sat up, all thoughts of creature comforts gone in an instant, and locked her eyes on the spot, willing herself not to blink for fear of missing it if it came again.

"Doctor," she said softly, not looking away. There! There it was again! "Doctor!" she said louder.

He was at her side in a second. Without a word, she pointed in the direction of the movement she had seen. The professor had apparently noticed, as he pulled the wagon to a halt, and they all stared-the blob in whatever way blobs stare-intently toward the horizon.

Another flash of bright green. They all saw it this time. The Doctor leaped onto the driver's seat, splashing away in his little bucket. The professor started up his team and steered them off the track into the vegetation in the direction of the sighting.

Donna slid off the seat and into the back of the wagon, where she and Sarah clutched the sides and tried to keep their eyes trained on the field around them despite the wild rocking of the wagon.

"There!" the Doctor cried, stretching a long arm out. The professor again didn't need a translation, as he swerved the wagon in the direction of the Time Lord's pointing finger. They bumped and jostled across the terrain at the team's top speed.

"Doctor," Donna said in a warning tone. Sarah glanced at her, then followed her gaze. She quickly whipped around and scanned the other side of the field.

"Doctor," Sarah said, echoing Donna's tone.

The Doctor snapped his head around. He splashed in the bucket and the professor reined in his team and brought the wagon to a halt.

The New surrounded them. At least a dozen of the creatures stood in a circle well back from the wagon, stamping their hooves, their luminous eyes burning.

"You bring the Other."

The thought rang in their minds, not as a single voice, but as an echoing chorus. Fear, anger, and resentment flared through them with the words.

"No, no," the Doctor protested. "He's a friend." He indicated the professor. "He's not like the others. The…other others, that is."

"We sought your help. Instead, you bring them among us."

"Our _help_?" Donna was winding up for a good old tirade. "You bring us here, dump us in the middle of nowhere, disappear…"

"You must go," the mental chorus interrupted her.

They felt the power building-fast-from the creatures that circled them.

"No! No!" The Doctor shouted. "Don't…"

But it was too late.


	18. Chapter 18

There wasn't even time to scream.

Sarah felt the blast of power hit her, felt it rip through her, separating molecule from molecule, atom from atom, electron from electron. Then there wasn't enough left of her to think, or feel. Or scream.

When she blinked back into existence, her first sensation was cold. The second was dark. The third was..."Harry!" She almost laughed his name in delight as his worried face swam into focus for a very brief moment. Then her eyes rolled up and her knees buckled, and only Harry's quick reflexes kept her from hitting the icy pavement outside their home on Bannerman Road.

"Sarah. What..." Harry scooped her limp body up into his arms, looking incredulously at her thin, haggard face, her lank, ratty hair, and the tattered remnants of the gown that had been whole and sound just seconds before. He had let go of Thor's collar in his shock at his companions' sudden disappearance, and the Lab was now barking wildly and dancing around the crumpled forms of the Doctor and Donna who, Harry noticed, were also in raggedy versions of the elegant attire they'd been sporting when they disappeared.

"Thor! Shut up and get in the house!" Harry shouted, and led the way for his dog, Sarah in his arms. He carried her to the sofa, tenderly eased her down onto it, performed the most cursory of examinations to assure himself she was alive and likely to stay that way for the immediate future, then tore himself away from her to go back out into the frigid January night and bring the other casualties in from the cold.

The Doctor was on his feet by the time Harry arrived, but only just. He was holding one of Donna's arms around his shoulders, propping her limp form up but looking as if he was fighting a losing battle against gravity. Harry ran to Donna's other side, took her hand, pulled her arm around his shoulders and wrapped his arm around her waist. "Can you make it?" he asked the Doctor, who nodded, then sank a foot and wavered sideways as his knees wibbled and threatened to go out from under him.

"Come on," Harry said in his most commanding tone, as he started toward the house. Donna's head bobbed and her feet dragged the ground as the Doctor swayed and staggered through the door, Harry doing most of the work of supporting both of them. Once inside, they positioned her in front of the overstuffed chair and eased her down into it. As soon as she was settled, the Doctor sank to the floor next to the chair in a tangle of long limbs and dropped his head into his hands.

"What in the hell happened out there?" Harry asked roughly as he checked Donna's vital signs, then went back to Sarah to do the same.

The Doctor didn't raise his head. He was moaning softly and his eyes were closed.

"Doctor." Harry's voice was sharp, demanding.

The Doctor held up a placating hand, palm out. "Long story," he gasped. "Give me a minute. Rough teleport."

Harry stared at him, then looked at Donna and Sarah. "Is that what's wrong with them?"

The Doctor nodded.

"That's what shredded their clothes and took twenty pounds off them? In thirty seconds?"

The Doctor shook his head, winced at the motion, and went back to holding his head as if it might roll off his shoulders if he didn't keep a firm grip on it.

"Then..."

"Harry. Please."

Harry compressed his lips unhappily at the Doctor's pleading tone. He took a deep, calming breath, then looked at Sarah, his heart in his eyes. He turned back to the Doctor.

"You alright?" he asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Will be. In a minute."

"And you can look after Donna?"

The Doctor nodded again without opening his eyes.

"Good." Harry stood, indecisive, for another moment. It went against all of his instincts, education and experience to leave two people to their own devices when they were obviously not well. Then he looked down at Sarah again, saw the gauntness and exhaustion in her face where there had been nothing but robust good health mere minutes ago, saw how she had somehow gone from plump (in her eyes) to bone thin in that same brief space of time. He shook his head, then took her in his arms. "If you need me, I'll be upstairs," he said, not looking over his shoulder. "Looking after Sarah." He headed off to their bedroom, Thor padding up the stairs after him.

When he reached the bedroom, he gently stretched Sarah out on the bed, checked her pulse and lifted her eyelids, one at a time. Satisfied for the moment that he didn't need to call 999 for her, he knelt by the bed and slipped the beat-up remnants of her shoes off her feet. "Oh, Sarah," he muttered as he saw the shape her feet were in. He rubbed them gently between his hands for a moment, then stood up and headed for the cupboard. Finding Sarah's sewing kit, he pulled it out and rummaged through it until he came up with a pair of scissors. These he applied to the rags that had been her dress.

"Mmmm." Sarah moaned and rolled her head to the side without opening her eyes.

"Lie still, love," Harry said softly, continuing to cut.

Sarah's eyes opened. She blinked and slowly focussed on him. "Harry!" she cried, halfway sitting up and holding her arms out to him.

"Careful," he said, not discouraging her but pulling the scissors away from between them.

Sarah frowned down at his hand. "What are you doing?" She sounded a bit muzzy still, as if she'd had too much champagne.

"Getting you out of these clothes," he answered, going back to scissoring the cloth.

"Oh. You don't need to do that," she said, sitting up and swinging her legs off the side of the bed. Then she closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples. "Mmm," she moaned. "Wasn't quite ready for that."

"Lie back down."

She shook her head. "I'll be okay. Just give me a second." She took a couple of deep breaths, then opened her eyes again, only to find herself looking directly into Harry's worried face. "Harry!" she said again, laughing with delight as if she had just rediscovered him. She wrapped her arms around him and this time he sat on the bed beside her and returned the hug. "I was so worried about you."

"Me?" he said into her ear. "You're the one who disappeared in a..." He trailed off.

She pulled back from the hug so she could look in his eyes. "A what?"

"Well. Nothing," he admitted. "You were there one second and then...poof! Gone! All three of you. And that...thing."

A shadow of worry crossed Sarah's face and she rubbed a spot just below where her collarbones met. "Are they...did they..."

Harry nodded reassuringly. "They're back. The Doctor was awake. Just. Said he'd be alright. He's looking after Donna."

"And the New?"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "The new what?"

"The green thing."

"Didn't see it."

Sarah nodded thoughtfully. "How long were we gone?"

He considered that for a second. "Not long. I didn't time it or anything. Too busy wondering what the hell had happened and where you'd gone. Seemed like forever. But...probably no more than thirty seconds."

"Thirty seconds," she repeated, laughing softly and shaking her head. She studied his face, then reached out and touched his cheek, as if she couldn't quite believe he was actually there, in front of her, without involving all of her senses in the proof. She ran her fingertips across his cheek, down his jaw, then gently across his lips. He took her hand and kissed her palm, then looked into her eyes. Without another word, they wrapped their arms around each other and their lips came together in a deep, long, passionate kiss.

Harry broke it off first. "Sorry," he said, pulling away. "You're in no shape..."

"Oh. I know," Sarah agreed, wrinkling her nose and trying to run her fingers through her tangled hair. "I'm filthy. Must smell like a..."

Harry laughed. "That's not what I meant. And you don't smell..." He paused and took a sniff. "...particularly nice, actually," he admitted, pulling a face.

Sarah gave a little moan of mortification. Then she stood up and pulled the well-past-its-prime dress over her head and off. She crumpled it into a ball, then looked around the room for a place to put it where it wouldn't contaminate anything clean.

Harry reached out and took a bit of the fabric gingerly between two fingers. "I'll take it," he said, holding it out from his body as he walked over to the bin and dropped it in. "Now lie down. You look like the wrath of God."

"I am not putting this filthy body between clean sheets, Harry Sullivan, no matter how tired I am," she declared. "I've been dreaming about a long, hot soak in a bubble bath for...well...I don't know how long, but I'm having one. Now."

He grinned. She was sounding like herself again. "Yes ma'am," he said, giving her a salute. "Shall I draw your bath?"

"Oh, please," she said, worlds of yearning in her voice. "And use every bubble in the house."

"Hot water. Don't spare the bubbles. Got it," he said with a grin, then turned and headed for the bathroom.

When he came back two minutes later, he found Sarah sitting in front of her vanity table in her stained and tattered slip, wincing as she tried to tug a comb through the snarls in her hair. He took the comb from her, set it on the table, then scooped her up in his arms.

"Harry, I can walk," she protested as he turned and started carrying her toward the bathroom.

"Hmm," he murmurred skeptically. "I've seen your feet."

Sarah twisted a leg around and peered at the sole of her foot. "What's wrong with them?"

That question just elicited a snort from Harry. Then he wrinkled his nose. "What is that pong?" he asked, burying his nose in her neck and taking a loud theatrical sniff.

"Unwashed human," she said, tucking her head in to block him from any more close sniffing.

He shook his head. "No, I've smelled unwashed human before. Plenty of times. This is different." He sniffed again. "Has overtones of...swamp. Decaying vegetation."

Sarah just gave a mortified "meep" and rolled her eyes at him.

When they reached the tub, Harry put her down and she pulled her slip off. Harry took it from her and binned it while she slipped out of her equally battered skimpies and stepped into the billowing bubbles.

"Aaaaaah." She gave a long, contented sigh and slid right down under the water.

Harry stared at the tub in mild shock. "Sarah." Nothing. "Sarah? Sarah!" He knelt by the tub and reached in, finding her arm and pulling her up into the air.

"I need a straw," she said as she emerged from the bubbles.

Harry laughed helplessly. "You going to drink the bath water?"

"No, I need it to breath through so I can stay under longer." She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the edge of the tub for a second, then looked at Harry hopefully. "Unless you have a scuba tank?"

He shook his head. "Sorry," he chuckled.

She sighed and started to slide back down into the water. This time she stopped just before her nose went under and lay there, eyes closed.

"How long _were _you gone?" Harry asked, picking up a shampoo bottle, squeezing a generous amount into his hand, and starting to work it into her hair. "I mean-how long was it for you? And where did you go?"

Sarah slid up far enough to talk without getting a mouthful of bubbles and, eyes still closed, told him about the sea of grass they had landed in, the three pastel suns-"The Doctor said they couldn't all be suns, but they looked like suns to me"-the giant amoeba creatures, the New and the not-so-new, their long and arduous hike, the encounter with the rainbow porcupine, being captured and sold on the auction block, the demise of the sonic, scrubbing the blob creatures' floors-everything she could remember. By the time she finished, the bubbles were gone and the water was a deep, disgusting grey. Harry pulled the plug and let it run out, then put the plug back in place and ran a second clean tubful of water and bubbles for her. Once the second set of bubbles had disappeared, and he'd heard even more about her sojourn on Blobworld, he drained the tub again and had her stand up for a final rinse with the hand-held sprayer.

"Stay there," he said. She was well beyond arguing, and stood obediently in the tub while he fetched a towel and her soft, fluffy terrycloth robe. Once she had wrapped the towel around her wet hair and slipped into the robe, he picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaned her head against his shoulder and laughed sleepily. "Am I not going to be allowed to walk anymore? Ever?"

He smiled down at her. "Maybe. Someday."

He put her down in front of the vanity and took the towel off her hair. Then they both set to work trying to comb out all the tangles.

"Should have done this first," Harry commented as he teased apart a snarl with his fingers. "Getting it wet just set the tangles."

Sarah stopped combing and stared at herself in the mirror. "Maybe we should just use your razor." She saw Harry's eyebrows shoot up in the mirror. "Fancy me in a buzz cut?" she asked, tipping her head and studying her reflection pensively.

"I'd fancy you bald," he said, bending down to kiss her neck. "If it came to that. But...let's hope it doesn't."

It didn't. A bit of conditioner convinced the last of the snarls to unsnarl, and finally, finally, Sarah started to feel like a proper human being again. She got up before Harry could pick her up this time, changed from her robe into her hot pink silk pyjamas, and crawled gratefully between clean, crisp white sheets. Harry quickly changed into his pyjamas and joined her under the covers.

They wrapped their arms around each other and Sarah rested her head against his chest. "There's no place like home," she whispered, with deep feeling. "There's no place like home."

Harry chuckled. "Did you try clicking your heels together and saying that when you were in Blobworld?"

"No," she answered drowsily. "I had to break my heels off. And they weren't silver."

"Silver?" he asked. "You mean ruby."

She shook her head. "Silver in the book. Ruby in the movie."

He frowned. "Really? Why?"

She shrugged and laughed softly. "Played better in Technicolor, I suppose."

Harry laughed and pulled her closer, stroking her still-damp hair. Then he sighed deeply. "Well. This wasn't exactly how I'd planned to welcome in the new year. But thank God you're back. And safe."

She had to agree. It was amazing how safe she felt in his arms. It had been so long since she had felt this safe. And comfortable. And clean.

"How _did _you plan to welcome in the new year?" she murmurred, on the edge of sleep. Something stirred under the covers in answer, and she opened her eyes wide and gave Harry a look. "Oh," was all she said, but her smile said more.

"It..it's okay. You're too tired. You've been through too much. Don't..." He broke off and swallowed hard as she slid a hand up under his pyjama top and stroked gently down his side. "Erm...you...erm..."

She grinned at his discomfiture. "We could give it a try. As long as you don't take it personally if I fall asleep in the middle."

He raised his eyebrows and gave her a smouldering look. "If you fall asleep in the middle, I'm not doing my duty."

She ducked her head and looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Well. I know you always do your duty, Commodore."

"Yes I do," he said. "For Queen and country." He took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply.

"Mmm. Definitely. No place like home," she said, smiling into his eyes when they came up for air. He nodded, and then their mouths were too busy for conversation again. And, tired though she was, she did not fall asleep in the middle._  
_


	19. Chapter 19

Harry closed his eyes and relaxed into the comfort of the bed with a contented sigh. Sarah was already sound asleep in his arms. They lay together, unmoving, for long enough that Harry should have been asleep too, especially after welcoming in the new year the way they had just done. But...

He sighed a deep, exasperated sigh, looked at Sarah peacefully sleeping, smiled crookedly, then slid out from between the sheets, careful not to disturb her. He pulled on his robe and padded barefoot out of the room and down the stairs, Thor racing past him as he belatedly realized his master was up and going somewhere at this odd hour.

The lights were still on in the living room, but there was no sign of the Doctor or Donna. "Good," Harry said, watching his dog run about, sniffing where the Time Lord and his companion had been, then going to the TARDIS doors and giving them a thorough going over. He sat facing the time machine, looked over his shoulder at Harry, and whimpered.

"They're fine," Harry said. "Come on. Since we're already down here, you might as well go out. Then we can sleep late."

Thor was more than willing to oblige with a tour of duty around the garden. When he came back in, Harry locked the door, turned out the lights and headed upstairs. He tossed his robe over the back of a chair, slid between the sheets, gently wrapped his arms around Sarah, and was asleep before Thor could turn around three times and settle on his rug.

oOoOo

When Harry next opened his eyes, it was to the sight of a big, wet, black nose just inches from his own.

"What part of sleep late did you not grasp, sir?" he asked his dog.

Thor thumped his tail hopefully on the floor.

Harry turned his head to check on Sarah. Seeing that she was still asleep, he sighed and slid out from under the covers.

Thor danced a happy Lab dance.

"Shhhh," Harry cautioned the dog. He slung on his robe and slippers and let Thor out the bedroom door, then followed him down the stairs. He shuffled to the front door, running his fingers through his sleep-rumpled hair and yawning. "OK, Thor," he said as he opened the door. Then he looked down and frowned. No Thor. He backtracked through the house and followed his ears to the kitchen.

"Morning!" Donna greeted him brightly over a cup of tea. Thor nudged her arm, got a pat, then ran to the Doctor, who was leaning against the counter, and got an affectionate ear ruffle.

"Fibber," Harry grumbled, looking at his dog.

"Pardon?" Donna said, startled.

"Oh. Sorry. Morning," Harry said, including them both in the greeting, then looking back at Thor. "He's the fibber. He swore he had to go out Said it was urgent."

The Doctor grinned as Thor reared up and gently put his paws on his chest. "He just wanted to say hello," he said, scratching the dog's neck.

"Mmm," Harry murmurred, disgruntled. "Come on, Thor," he said. "You told me you had to go out, so you _are _going out."

Thor was more than happy to oblige. Harry stood in the doorway, watching his dog make his rounds in the garden, feeling the frigid air wake him up well beyond the point of being able to crawl back into bed next to Sarah and go back to sleep. He let Thor back in, then returned to the kitchen, where the Doctor was standing in front of the stove, flipping pancakes in Sarah's biggest cast-iron skillet.

Harry leaned against the doorframe, folded his arms across his chest, and watched the Time Lord.

"You don't mind?" Donna asked tentatively. Harry turned to her with raised eyebrows. "Us helping ourselves. He said it would be okay," she added, inclining her head toward the Doctor.

"Oh, no, of course, you're welcome to it. Whatever you like," Harry assured her. He stood silently, eyes on the floor, for a moment. Then he looked up with a sigh. "It's the least I can do after last night."

The Doctor gave Harry a quick glance, then turned his attention back to his pancakes. Donna frowned questioningly at Harry.

"I owe you two an apology," Harry answered her look. "Going off and leaving you like that..." He trailed off, shaking his head and compressing his lips. "I did come down to check on you. Later. But you were gone. In the TARDIS, I assume."

Donna waved away his words. "Don't worry about it. We were fine."

Harry continued as if she hadn't spoken. "I was just so worried about Sarah. Seeing her...disappear like that. And the state she was in when she came back." He shook his head.

"She okay?" Donna asked and the Doctor again paused in his pancake-flipping to listen to the answer.

Harry nodded. "Seems to be. She's still asleep. Or was when I was so falsely got out of bed," he added, glaring at Thor in mock anger.

The dog didn't notice. He was too busy supervising the pancake making and hoping one of the Time Lord's flips would flop in his direction. No such luck, though, as the Doctor expertly piled a stack of golden brown flapjacks on a plate and put it on the table in front of his companion. "Harry? Can I make you some?" he asked as Donna tucked in eagerly.

Harry waved a hand, palm out. "I'll eat with Sarah."

Donna paused with a well-loaded forkful halfway to her mouth. "Oh. Should we have waited?"

Harry laughed. "Considering what she told me last night about what you ate while you were...wherever you were...no. Please. Eat up."

The Doctor piled a second plate, put it on the table and pulled up a chair. As the Time Lord buttered and syrupped his pancakes, Harry moved to the refrigerator and pulled out eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, onions, a block of double Gloucester and a bottle of milk. He lifted a mixing bowl down from the cupboard, and then started breaking eggs and chopping vegetables.

"So," he said as he worked, his voice carefully neutral. "I suppose you two will want to be off soon."

The Doctor and Donna exchanged a glance. "I...erm..." The Doctor scratched behind his ear as he contemplated the question. "I suppose. No rush. But I do want to get back and sort things out."

"Back to Blobworld?" Donna asked, sounding astonished.

"Well, yes," the Doctor answered. "Although I'm sure that's not what the inhabitants call it," he added, arching an eyebrow at his companion.

Donna forked another wedge of pancakes into her mouth as she thought that over. "Well. I suppose we should make sure the professor is okay."

"And make sure that the bl...erm...amoeba creatures understand the New aren't to be captured and sold."

"And how do you plan to go about that? We didn't have much success at it before."

"We'll have the TARDIS this time," the Doctor pointed out. "She'll translate. Everyone will understand each other."

"Sounds wonderful," Harry interjected before Donna could respond. He glanced at their rapidly emptying plates. "Don't bother with the washing up. I'll do that."

The Doctor and Donna exchanged another glance, this time with raised eyebrows on both sides.

"Oh, I don't think there's any rush," Donna said carefully. "We can wait for Sarah. I'm sure she'll want to..."

"I think Sarah's had enough adventure for now," Harry interrupted firmly, without turning around.

The Doctor and Donna locked eyes for a longer period this time. Donna compressed her lips and gave him a sympathetic look as he opened his mouth to speak-several times-and then shut it again each time without commenting.

"Isn't that for Sarah to decide?" Donna finally said softly.

Harry turned to face them and leaned back against the counter. "I've had to make a lot of decisions for Sarah in the past few months," he said, looking unhappy but determined. "Because she wasn't capable of making them for herself."

The Doctor couldn't meet Harry's eyes. "She is now," he said in a low voice.

"Is she?" Harry paused, waiting for an answer that didn't appear to be coming. "If she chose to go with you-and I'm sure she would," he added, sotto voce, with a sigh. "Would that be the right thing for her?" When he still didn't get an answer, he leaned toward the table. "Have you _seen _her Doctor?"

The Doctor looked up at him then, his mouth a thin line, a muscle jumping in his cheek.

"She's not twenty-five anymore," Harry went on, his voice softening. "Middle-aged humans don't bounce back the way we did when we were younger. There's a limit." He took a deep breath. "And I think she's hit it for now. She needs some recovery time."

Silence fell in the kitchen. The Doctor stared at his plate, eyes dark. Donna reached out and put a consoling hand over his where it lay on the table. He looked at her hand for a long moment, then met her eyes and nodded. "Let's go," he said, his voice low and rough.

"Are you sure?" she asked gently.

He nodded again. "Harry's right." He gave Donna's face a searching look, as if willing himself to see how thin and drawn it was. "In fact. Maybe you should stay too. Rest up."

Donna laughed. "Fat chance, Spaceboy. I'm not missing out on a chance to have a few words with those blobs. Words they'll understand for a change."

One corner of the Doctor's mouth quirked up in a small, reluctant smile. "I'll set the TARDIS' profanity filter," he said.

"Don't you dare! I want them to get a right earful." She stopped and looked pensive. "Or whatever it is they hear with," she added.

The Doctor gave a soft laugh, and looked at his companion with warm, grateful eyes. "Let's go," he said again, pushing his chair back and getting up.

"Come back and let us know how it works out," Harry said as they headed out of the kitchen. They stopped and looked back over their shoulders at him. "I'm sure Sarah will want to know." The Doctor gave a small nod, then they turned and started toward the living room where the TARDIS stood waiting. "Oh and Doctor," Harry called. The Doctor turned again and waited. Harry swallowed. "Thank you," he said, his voice husky with relief.

The Doctor nodded again, his eyes slipping out of focus for a moment. Then, with a deep breath, he straightened, turned, and left the room. Within moments, the sounds of the TARDIS engines filled the house. Then all was silent.


	20. Chapter 20

Harry stood in the kitchen, utterly still, staring into the middle distance, listening as the last echoes of the time ship's departure faded. Then the pop of a sizzling sausage snapped him back to life. Under Thor's eager supervision, he piled eggs, bacon, sausage and toast onto plates and the plates onto a tray. A teapot tucked into a gingham cozy, mugs, butter, a pot of marmalade...what else? He shrugged and picked up the loaded tray. If they needed anything else, he could always run down and fetch it later. He headed out the kitchen door and up the stairs, Thor by his side, the dog trying to keep his nose as close to the enticing tray as he dared.

Harry entered the bedroom with a theatrical flourish and a big smile-which immediately fell when he saw the bed was empty.

"Oh God. Not again," he moaned softly. He set the tray on the foot of the bed. "Sarah!" he cried to the universe, his voice pleading.

"What?"

Harry jumped and turned to see Sarah stood right behind him, an impish grin on her lips. He pressed a hand to his heart and shook his head. "Don't do that to me."

"Do what?" she asked, eyes twinkling. "Can't a girl go to the loo? Did you think I'd disappeared into...thin..." Her words slowed as Harry's eyebrows rose. "Well, I didn't," she finished rather lamely.

"Not this time," he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly.

"Thor!" Sarah said in a warning tone. Harry spun 180 degrees, Sarah still in his arms, and saw the lab sitting very close to the bed-and the tray-looking at him with wide innocent eyes.

"You were not thinking of helping yourself, sir, were you?" Harry addressed his dog sternly over Sarah's shoulder, and the Lab thumped his thick tail on the floor. Harry loosed his grip on Sarah, but took her hand as he did. "Back to bed," he said, gently tugging her in that direction. "Before breakfast gets cold. Or eaten," he added with another stern look at his dog.

Sarah resisted his pull, frowning at the tray. "That's very sweet, Harry, but..." She looked up at him with a tentative smile. "We have guests."

"They've already eaten," Harry said with a dismissive wave of his free hand. Sarah still just stood, looking at him with uncertain eyes. "The Doctor was cooking breakfast for himself and Donna when I got up. Flapjacks. American style," he continued as Sarah continued to resist his pull on her hand.

"They could probably eat again, as long as it's been since we all had decent food. And enough of it." She closed her eyes and drank in the ambrosial scents of sausage and bacon. "We could at least be sociable..."

He cut her off abruptly. "They left."

Sarah stared at him. Her mouth opened and her eyebrows furrowed as she took in his words.

"Left?" she asked, incredulous.

Harry nodded. "The Doctor wanted to get back to that world and get those creatures sorted."

"But..." Sarah's hand flew to the spot just below where her collarbones met. She rubbed it softly for a moment as her eyes went out of focus.

"He is gone," she said in a disbelieving whisper. She looked up at Harry with the eyes of a lost soul.

Harry nodded reluctantly.

"Why?"

"Maybe he thought he'd put you through enough," Harry said softly.

"He didn't put me through anything," Sarah corrected him firmly. "None of it was his fault."

Harry tipped his head from side to side, acknowledging her point. "Maybe he thought you'd been through enough," he amended his statement.

Her fingertips still pressed on the slight indentation at the base of her throat and her eyes went out of focus again. When she came back to herself this time, she looked at Harry with wide eyes. "You told him to leave?"

Harry laughed, a bit too heartily. "Me? Tell a Time Lord what to do?" His laughter faltered and died as she continued to stare at him. He sobered under her gaze, started to say something, then closed his mouth and swallowed hard instead. "I may have suggested...".he finally managed to say. He studied her thin face and his voice grew stronger, more sure. "...I did suggest...that you'd had enough adventure for one visit. And you needed some R&R far more than you needed to go back to that planet."

Sarah's lips compressed into a thin line, and her eyes began to flash green fire. "And he agreed?"

Harry shrugged, rounded his eyes and pooched out his lips as if to say, well, he left, didn't he?

"Oh!" Sarah huffed as if someone had punched her in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her. "You...he...what...OH! You didn't! Both of you..." She shook her head, her mouth opening and closing, beyond words. "Did either of you think of consulting me?" she finally asked. With another huff, she wrapped her dressing gown tightly around her and stomped off to the far side of the room, where she flounced into the window seat, knees up, arms wrapped tightly around them, and stared out at the icy world.

"Sarah." Harry studied her pose and tried his best to sound reasonable, innocent, caring, and firm, all at once. "Come eat. We can talk about it."

"I'm not hungry," she snapped without turning from the window. She leaned her forehead against the cold glass and stared out at the gray morning.

Harry hesitated another moment, looking from Sarah to Thor and back to Sarah again. Then he picked up the breakfast tray, slid under the sheets, and set the tray across his lap. "Oh well. More for me," he said lightly. He glanced at the small, tightly-coiled figure in the window seat, but saw no change in her tense posture. "Shame," he want on, picking up a sausage link and examining it. "I fixed them just the way you like them. Well browned." Sarah's eyes moved this time, darting a look of daggers at him that turned into a yearning gaze at his sausage. Then her jaw set and she turned away again.

Harry's lips quirked in a smile that he quickly suppressed. "Mmm," he purred as he took a bite of the meat and chewed appreciatively.

"Oh, alright. I am hungry," Sarah said, flouncing out of the window seat and stomping to the bed. "Shove over."

Harry ducked his head to hide a grin and shoved over. When Sarah reached for the tray, though, he pulled it away, putting one sausage link in his mouth, leaving half of it sticking out. He wiggled it, and his eyebrows, in her direction.

Sarah glared at him. "I'll bite your lips off."

He grinned and wiggled the sausage at her again. "Come and get it," he said, his words indistinct thanks to the need to keep his lips tight around the sausage to hold it in place.

Sarah sighed, then leaned in to him and with a ferocious snap bit off the sausage, her teeth grazing his mouth. He jumped back instinctively, then laughed and chewed the bit of sausage he'd been left with.

Sarah leaned against the pillows, closed her eyes and chewed as if her hard-won bit of sausage was the most delectible thing she'd ever tasted. When she opened her eyes, the tray was in her lap, and Harry was beaming at her.

"This doesn't mean you're forgiven," she said as she picked up a fork and dug in to the heavenly food. She groaned with pleasure as she took a bite of the eggs, cheese, mushrooms and onions.

Harry watched with a broad grin. "I thought the way to a man's heart was through his stomach."

"What makes you think this will get you to my heart?" she asked, flashing him another annoyed glance.

"Works with Thor," Harry said blandly, then chuckled when she threw him the expected glare. Thor thumped his tail hopefully when he heard his name. "I don't think she's going to leave you anything, mister," Harry told his dog, watching Sarah tuck in.

"Fat chance," Sarah mumbled around a mouthful of eggs.

Harry helped himself to a piece of toast, buttered it, then leaned back against the pillows and took a bite. He watched with a benevolent smile as Sarah cleared her plate.

"Would it be uncouth to lick it?" she asked, staring at the empty plate longingly.

Harry snorted a laugh. "Not if you're a dog." She gave him a sidelong glance that was several degrees less frosty than the last one had been. "There's more, you know," he said.

She sighed and leaned back against the pillows, her hands resting on the slight bulge of her stomach. "It still tastes good, but..."

Harry nodded. "Probably wise. Don't overload your stomach when it's been empty so long."

Sarah's eyebrows furrowed slightly and she closed her eyes. "Mmm," she murmurred. "Now you say."

Harry's forehead immediately creased in a worried frown. "You alright? You're not..."

"I'm fine," she interrupted him. "I just made a pig of myself." She looked into his worried blue eyes. "Oink!" she said, raising her eyebrows.

He grinned, a grin that softened into a gentle, loving smile. After a moment, Sarah gave him a reluctant half-smile back. "I didn't consult you," he said, very softly. "Because I was afraid." Her smile faded, but she didn't look away. "Afraid you'd make the wrong decision."

"Wrong for you," she said flatly.

He stretched out a hand toward her cheek, but she turned away from his touch. "What's wrong for you is wrong for me," he said softly, after a moment. He ran the backs of his fingers down her jawline, ever so gently. She sighed, but she didn't move away. "Besides," he said, lightening his tone. "I had big plans for today. Didn't want you galavanting off to hob-nob with blobs."

Sarah rolled her eyes at that. "What big plans?" she asked, curious in spite of herself.

Harry slid further down under the covers, lying flat on his back with his fingers interlaced behind his head. "Sleep in. Have a wonderful, decadent, unhealthy breakfast. Make love." He gave her his best seductive smile. "Fall asleep in each other's arms. Wake up. Eat a decadent, unhealthy, wonderful lunch. Make love..."

"Okay, okay, I see where this is going," she broke in.

"Sounds better than going back to Blobworld, doesn't it?" He was looking at the ceiling as he said it, a small smile playing on his lips. When she didn't answer-even with a "humph!"-he turned to look at her. "Sarah?"

She didn't respond. She didn't move. Her eyes were blank, empty, her muscles rigid.

"Sarah," he said, sliding back up into a sitting position and leaning close to her, a hand on her shoulder. "Sarah Jane. Love. Talk to me. What's happening?"

Her lips trembled. Her mouth opened slightly, but at first nothing came out except small puffs of air. Then the puffs of air turned into sounds. "I...I...I..." she stammered softly.

"Easy. Deep breaths." No reaction at first. Then her breathing deepened, as if his words had just, belatedly, penetrated her mind and taken hold. "Good," he encouraged her.

After a minute or two, she blinked and pressed the heels of her hands to her temples.

"Better?" Harry asked. She nodded, still shaken. "What happened? What set it off? What I said?"

She gave him a sidelong, apologetic glance, and nodded again.

"Tell me," he coaxed, in a soothing voice.

"Ah..." she said, as if just finding her voice again. "I...oh Harry." She closed her eyes and shook her head. He moved his hand from her shoulder to her back, and she leaned into him, resting her head on his chest. "There's a part of me," she said in a small voice. "That thinks that sounds like the most wonderful day possible."

Harry smiled, and leaned his cheek against the top of her bowed head. "But?"

"That's not me."

He pulled back and gave her a puzzled look. "You just said it was."

Her eyebrows furrowed and she sighed. "I did, didn't I." She thought a moment. "Well. That's her."

"Her who?"

She gave him a mildly annoyed glance. "You know who. Her. The...Sarah that was left behind."

He gave her a crooked grin. "Oh. Her. The girl I proposed to."

She nodded unhappily. "That's the one."

"So who's me?" he asked gently.

She looked up at him, puzzled.

"You said 'That's not me.' Who's me then?"

Sarah frowned. "You know me."

"Oh!" He pulled an exaggerated I get it! face. "You mean you. Intrepid girl reporter you."

She rolled her eyes. "If you must."

"Time and space traveller you."

She smiled at that one.

"Independent feminist you."

She just stared at him now, as if waiting-and hoping-for him to wind down.

He took her face between his hands and looked deeply into her green eyes. "I don't know how to break this to you, Miss Smith," he said softly. "But...she's you too."


End file.
